Ecstasy 'harms memory'
Ecstasy tablets could harm people's verbal memory
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Tuesday, 05, Jun 2007 10:55
Even low doses of ecstasy can harm people's verbal memory, new research claims.
Previous studies found that the illegal drug can harm the brain by damaging nerve cells that respond to the hormone serotonin, which is involved in mood, thinking, learning and memory.
In the latest report, published today in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers discovered that verbal recall and recognition is significantly lower in ecstasy users.
Between 2002 and 2004 they studied 58 people who used ecstasy and 60 people of the same age, sex and intelligence score who had not taken the drug.
The participants took tests that assessed various types of memory, including attention, verbal memory for words and language, and visual memory for images.
"At the initial examination, there were no statistically significant differences in any of the neuropsychological test scores between persistent ecstasy-naive subjects and future ecstasy users," the authors write.
"However, at follow-up, change scores on immediate and delayed verbal recall and verbal recognition were significantly lower in the group of incident ecstasy users compared with persistent ecstasy-naive subjects. There were no significant differences on other test scores."
The researchers propose that the effect on memory "seems to be a depletion of serotonin in ecstasy users".
Further research is needed, they conclude, to assess the long term effects of the drug as well as the additive effects of ecstasy use on ageing of the brain.