A recent study shows that MDMA alters the brain in several different ways. It will also explain the effect of how it changes it for the user, their friends, and family. It’s similar to other types of drugs in many ways, but this one has a massive impact on the people around you.
The study explains how taking MDMA alters the brain in various different ways. The study also showed that this drug is extremely harmful to your body in slightly lower doses than what’s usually taken by users today.
Researchers were able to understand just how dangerous this stimulant can be by examining its effects on certain neurotransmitters, which are responsible for controlling important functions within the body, such as movement, heart rate, blood pressure, and cognition itself.
What they found was that MDMA decreases the concentration of serotonin in people’s bodies, especially when taken multiple times. In order to understand how MDMA actually affects these neurotransmitters, you need to be aware of a few things about them.
What is Serotonin?
For instance, serotonin is a chemical produced in the neurons and causes certain messages to be sent from one neuron to another. It’s also responsible for controlling what’s called your cognition which means it controls important factors such as your memory formation, learning processes, and decision-making behavior.
In lower concentrations, this drug doesn’t have much of an effect on you, but it can cause seizures or even heart failure in higher ones. Another neurotransmitter that is being affected by MDMA is dopamine.
What is Dopamine?
Dopamine can be described as a reward chemical when you do something good, the neurons in your brain release this chemical so that you can identify whether or not certain decisions are good choices to make. It’s also responsible for controlling actions such as movement, attention, and emotions. So, for example, your body creates dopamine naturally when you eat food, have sex, or even just by doing something pleasurable, which helps you feel happy.
So how does MDMA affect these neurotransmitters?
Well, even though it doesn’t seem like a big deal on the surface from these facts alone, taking ecstasy causes serotonin levels to drop drastically while flooding your brain with dopamine which then leads to problems within the neuron itself. Thus, resulting in damage caused by extremely high concentrations of these chemicals.
In small doses, MDMA gives people a feeling of euphoria and enhances their senses, so they feel as though time is passing by slower. Still, when taken without care, it can have extremely fatal consequences for both the user and those around them.
Serotonin concentrations decrease even more in high doses, causing a long list of negative side effects such as confusion, depression, anxiety, and many more. On top of that, it’s possible to experience severe memory loss after using substances with MDMA in them.
Even if users think that it’s safe to take small amounts of this drug or do it just one time, the study showed that the serotonin levels drop dramatically regardless of how much you’ve consumed.
This means that the feelings of euphoria people get from taking ecstasy will be altered because your brain isn’t getting enough serotonin which causes irregularities between the neurons and what’s happening in your body. This also increases the chances of you experiencing severe memory loss, which can last up to several months.
The study is extremely important for both users and their friends because it shows how dangerous this drug is even if taken once or consumed in low doses. In addition, researchers revealed that MDMA causes long-lasting damage to people’s bodies with just one dose, and its effects don’t disappear after a few hours as other drugs do.
How has MDMA affected young adults?
Although rare, overdose can lead to nausea and vomiting, muscle spasms, overheating, and heart failure. As a result, drug-related deaths in young people have become a major public health issue in recent years, with this drug even being named the cause of death in some cases.
The dangers of recreational ecstasy use are often overlooked because younger people underestimate how dangerous this drug actually is; despite being illegal, many teenagers still take the risk of becoming addicted to MDMA solely because they think nothing bad will happen to them.
The lack of memory, known as anterograde amnesia, means that it is not always possible for friends to know if someone has taken ecstasy; however, it may be possible for them to tell by looking at their pupils. However, the user should be aware that under no circumstances should they mix this drug with other types of drugs or alcohol.
Seek help:
For this reason, professionals advise everyone who plans on taking ecstasy to refrain from doing so in order to avoid any risks for their own safety. However, there is a lot of help available if you simply look for it.
Research shows that people who seek addiction treatment have a higher success rate than those who do not seek any professional help.
This is so for three main reasons:
- There are various ways to treat a problem, depending on how severe it is and what type of symptoms the individual exhibits.
- Addiction is physical and psychological, which means that in order to recover from it successfully, an individual should undergo both physical and mental treatments, i.e., medical detoxification combined with psychotherapy or other similar therapies such as group or family therapy, support groups, etc.
- Addictions often come hand in hand with other mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.
These can be successfully treated only once the individual is free from addiction and drug abuse.
