‘Designer’ Drug Damage

Ecstasy, a “designer drug” once touted as a breakthrough aid to psychotherapy, depletes a key chemical in the brain and may cause permanent neurological damage, a study on monkeys indicates.

Squirrel monkeys injected with 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, showed a marked decrease in the serotonin, a brain chemical that is poorly understood but believed to be vital, as well as damage to nerve pathways involving the chemical, researchers said in a report in the Journal of the Amercan Medical Assn.

The researchers said their finding is the first to show such effects in primates and should serve as a warning to anyone who decides to take the drug.

“It remains to be determined if administration of MDMA to monkeys in a pattern identical to that used by humans produces similar toxicity,” researchers said, but they cautioned “humans are generally regarded as being more sensitive than monkeys to the toxic effects of drugs.”