Ecstasy Associated With Chronic Change in Brain Function
Date: 5.5.2011
The message in news reports needs to be accurate, Cowan said. His team's studies suggest that the current message should be: "If you use Ecstasy recreationally, the more you use, the more brain changes you get."
They found increased brain activation in three brain areas associated with visual processing in Ecstasy users with the highest lifetime exposure to the drug. The findings were consistent with the investigators' predictions based on results from animal models: that Ecstasy use is associated with a loss of serotonin signaling, which leads to hyper-excitability (increased activation) in the brain.
The hyper-excitability suggests a loss in brain efficiency, Cowan said, "meaning that it takes more brain area to process information or perform a task."
The investigators found that this shift in brain excitability did not return to normal in subjects who had not used Ecstasy in more than a year.
