Combination Of Common Medications May Lead To Stroke

The use of serotonin-enhancing drugs – including some newer antidepressants, antimigraine agents, decongestants, diet pills, amphetamines, and the popular drug of abuse ‘ecstasy’ – can precipitate cerebrovascular syndrome (stroke) due to narrowing of cerebral blood vessels.

According to a study published in the January 8 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, the use of multiple serotonergic drugs can precipitate sudden, severe headaches, seizures and stroke, particularly when combined with other vasoactive drugs.

In addition to advocating caution when combining medications that contain serotonin enhancers, this study presents implications for the care and treatment of patients exhibiting any of the above-mentioned symptoms, especially when presenting with sudden-onset headaches.

“We would stress the importance of asking these patients about use of such medications,” said study author A. B. Singhal, M.D. of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Neurology.

While typical treatment of acute headaches may include use of serotonergic drugs, patients who present with sudden-onset headaches “may be best served by noninvasive evaluation of cerebral arteries for vasoconstriction, after conditions like brain hemorrhage have been excluded,” suggests Singhal. “If vasoconstriction is suspected, serotonergic agents should be discontinued.”

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 17,500 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit its web site at http://www.aan.com.

 

Recreational Cocaine Use May Impair Inhibitory Control

The recreational use of cocaine has rapidly increased in many European countries over the past few years. One cause of this is the fall in the price of the drug on the street from 100 Euros for one gram (about 5 lines) in 2000 to 50 Euros in the Netherlands today. One line of cocaine is, thus, now as cheap as a tablet of ecstasy. This means cocaine is no longer considered an "elite" drug but is affordable for all, especially for recreational use. It is therefore likely that the recreational use of cocaine will become a public health issue in the next few years, which is already the case for the recreational use of ecstasy.

In a study in PLoS One, researchers at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, led by Lorenza Colzato, employed the "stop-signal paradigm" to measure the length of time taken by subjects to initiate and suppress a prepared reaction.

The stop-signal task requires participants to react quickly and accurately by pressing a left or right key in response to the direction of a left- or right-pointing green arrow. In 30% of the trials, the green arrow turned red, in which case participants had to abort the go response. The results show that while both recreational users of cocaine and non-users performed similarly in terms of response initiation, users needed significantly more time to inhibit their responses.

The study is the first of its kind to investigate systematically action control, and the inhibitory control of unwanted response tendencies in particular, in recreational users, i.e. those who don't meet the criteria for abuse or dependency but who take cocaine (usually by snorting) on a monthly basis (1 to 4 grams). The researchers found that the magnitude of the inhibitory deficit in recreational users was smaller than previously observed in chronic users, suggesting that the degree of the impairment is proportional to the level of cocaine use.

Given the seemingly small quantities of cocaine involved, the findings of this study are rather worrying. Many real-life situations require the active inhibition of pre-potent actions, as in the case of traffic lights turning red or of criminal actions. This impairment of inhibitory control has serious implications for personal or societal functioning. This reduced level of inhibitory control may even be involved in the emergence of addiction: the more a drug is used, the less able users are to prevent themselves from using it.

Citation: Colzato LS, van den Wildenberg WPM, Hommel B (2007) Impaired Inhibitory Control in Recreational Cocaine Users. PLoS One 2(11): e1143.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001143

 

Drug study shows clubbers have little interest in new wave legal highs

Clubbers show little interest in the subsequent wave of legal highs that have become available since mephedrone was banned, according to a new study published this week in QJ Medical Journal.

Researchers from Lancaster University, Kings College London and Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and Kings Health Partners surveyed 313 individuals over four nights in gay-friendly nightclubs in South East London last summer.

Although a significant proportion of individuals report previous use of novel psychoactive substances, it seems that only mephedrone has become an established part of the recreational drug scene — despite the fact that it was banned in 2010.

Of the 313 individuals surveyed :

  • 206 (66%) had previously used a 'legal high'.
  • Mephedrone had the highest prevalence of last month use (53%) and use on the night of the survey (41%).
  • This was greater than both cocaine (45% and 17%, respectively) and MDMA/ecstasy (27% and 6%)
  • There was limited use on the fieldwork night of the non-mephedrone 'legal highs': including the ketamine-substitute methoxetamine or 'mexxy' (2%), the cannabis-substitute Spice/K2 (0.6%) and the pipradrols (0.6%).

Lancaster University's Dr Fiona Measham, one of the authors of the report, said:

"Although there is some experimentation with 'legal highs', only mephedrone has become an established part of the recreational drug scene. For the majority of 'legal highs' that have come onto the market since mephedrone was banned, use is low or non-existent. This suggests that what we are seeing is a pattern of differentiated demand for drugs — just because drugs are for sale doesn't necessarily mean that people are buying them."


Journal Reference:

  1. D.M. Wood, L. Hunter, F. Measham, and P.I. Dargan. Limited use of novel psychoactive substances in South London nightclubs. QJ Medical Journal, June 19, 2012 DOI: 10.1093/qjmed/hcs107
 

American teens are less likely than European teens to use cigarettes and alcohol, but more likely to use illicit drugs

The U.S. had the second-lowest proportion of students who used tobacco and alcohol compared to their counterparts in 36 European countries, a new report indicates.

The results originate from coordinated school surveys about substance use from more than 100,000 students in some of the largest countries in Europe like Germany, France and Italy, as well as many smaller ones from both Eastern and Western Europe.

Because the methods and measures are largely modeled after the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future surveys in this country, comparisons are possible between the U.S. and European results. The 15- and 16-year-old students, who were drawn in nationally representative samples in almost all of the 36 countries, were surveyed last spring. American 10th graders in the 2011 Monitoring the Future studies are of the same age, so comparisons are possible.

The differences found between adolescent behaviors in the U.S. and Europe are dramatic, according to Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator of the American surveys.

About 27 percent of American students drank alcohol during the 30 days prior to the survey. Only Iceland was lower at 17 percent, and the average rate in the 36 European countries was 57 percent, more than twice the rate in the U.S.

The proportion of American students smoking cigarettes in the month prior to the survey was 12 percent — again the second lowest in the rankings and again only Iceland had a lower rate at 10 percent. For all European countries the average proportion smoking was 28 percent, more than twice the rate in the U.S.

"One of the reasons that smoking and drinking rates among adolescents are so much lower here than in Europe is that both behaviors have been declining and have reached historically low levels in the U.S. over the 37-year life of the Monitoring the Future study," Johnston said. "But even in the earlier years of the European surveys, drinking and smoking by American adolescents was quite low by comparison.

"Use of illicit drugs is quite a different matter."

The U.S. students tend to have among the highest rates of use of all of the countries. At 18 percent, the U.S. ranks third of 37 countries on the proportion of students using marijuana or hashish in the prior 30 days. Only France and Monaco had higher rates at 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The average across all the European countries was 7 percent, or less than half the rate in the U.S.

American students reported the highest level of marijuana availability of all the countries and the lowest proportion of students associating great risk with its use — factors that may help to explain their relatively high rates of use here, according to Johnston.

The U.S. ranks first in the proportion of students using any illicit drug other than marijuana in their lifetime (16 percent compared to an average of 6 percent in Europe) and using hallucinogens like LSD in their lifetime (6 percent vs. 2 percent in Europe). It also ranks first in the proportion reporting ecstasy use in their lifetime (7 percent vs. 3 percent in Europe), despite a sharp drop in their ecstasy use over the previous decade. American students have the highest the proportion reporting lifetime use of amphetamines (9 percent), a rate that is three times the average in Europe (3 percent). Ecstasy was seen as more available in the U.S. than in any other country.

For some drugs, however, the lifetime prevalence rate in the U.S. was just about the average for the European countries, including inhalants (10 percent), cocaine (3 percent), crack (2 percent), heroin (1 percent) and anabolic steroids (1 percent).

"Clearly the U.S. has attained relatively low rates of use for cigarettes and alcohol, though not as low as we would like," Johnston said. "But the level of illicit drug use by adolescents is still exceptional here."

* * * This was the fifth coordinated data collection in Europe as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, the first being held in 1995 with 26 countries participating. The research plan this time was for each country to generate a representative national sample of 15- and 16-year-olds with at least 2,400 students being surveyed. All samples were nationally representative, except those in Germany, Russia, Flanders (the Dutch part of Belgium) and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In each of these cases a sub-national representative sample was surveyed, such as Moscow in the case of Russia.

The European survey group was led by Swedish sociologist Bjorn Hibbell, who has worked in the substance abuse field for many years. The American survey is led by social psychologist Lloyd Johnston, who has served as principal investigator of Monitoring the Future since its inception 37 years ago. MTF, which is conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, had a sample of 15,400 10th-grade students in 126 high schools in the 2011 survey. Students completed confidential, self-administered questionnaires right in their classrooms in both the American and European surveys.

 

Ecstasy Use Depletes Brain's Serotonin Levels

ST. PAUL, MN — Use of the recreational drug Ecstasy causes a severe reduction in the amount of serotonin in the brain, according to a study in the July 25 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study examined the brain of a 26-year-old man who had died of a drug overdose. He had been using Ecstasy for nine years, and in the last months of his life had also started using cocaine and heroin. His brain was compared to those from autopsies of 11 healthy people.

"The levels of serotonin and another chemical associated with serotonin were 50 to 80 percent lower in the brain of the Ecstasy user," said study author Stephen Kish, PhD, of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. "This is the first study to show that this drug can deplete the level of serotonin in humans."

Ecstasy, which is known chemically as methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is structurally related to the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant amphetamine. MDMA causes neurons, or nerve cells, to release serotonin, a neurotransmitter that controls mood, pain perception, sleep, appetite and emotions. Ecstasy users report an increased awareness of emotion and a heightened sense of intimacy.

"Some of the behavioral effects of this drug are probably due to the massive release and depletion of serotonin," Kish said. "And the depression that people feel after going off the drug could also be explained by the depletion of serotonin in the brain."

The low levels of serotonin were found in the striatal area of the brain, which plays a key role in coordinating movement. In addition to serotonin, the level of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, also known as 5-HIAA and a major breakdown product of serotonin, was also low in the brain of the Ecstasy user.

"Of course, these findings should be confirmed through additional studies," Kish said. "Conclusions based on a single case can only be tentative."

Researchers confirmed the man's drug use through analysis of his brain, blood and hair. The analysis also confirmed that he had been using cocaine and heroin in the last months of his life. Kish said other research has shown that those drugs do not affect serotonin levels.

The man started using Ecstasy once a month at age 17. His usage increased, and in the last three years of his life he used it four to five nights a week at "rave" clubs, usually including a three-day weekend binge during which he took six to eight tablets. On the day after these binges, his friends said he appeared depressed and had slow speech, movement and reaction time.

Kish said research should also be done to determine whether increasing serotonin levels in people who are going off the drug would help eliminate some of the behavioral problems that occur during withdrawal.

 

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The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 16,500 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research.

A neurologist is a medical doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit its Web site at http://www.aan.com . For online neurological health and wellness information, visit NeuroVista at http://www.aan.com/neurovista .

 

Safety issue revealed as 1 in 20 Australian workers admits to drinking at work, survey finds

A national survey has found that more than one in twenty Australian workers report using alcohol while at work or just before work, and more than one in fifty report taking drugs during or just before work. These findings, published online in the journal Addiction, have implications for workplace safety.

Researchers used data from the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS), which polled over 23,000 Australian residents aged 12 and over on their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. The resulting statistics showed that working while under the influence of alcohol or drugs was more likely to happen in the hospitality, construction, and financial services industries. Young, male, never married workers with no dependent children were likelier than other groups to work under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Managers showed the highest prevalence of alcohol use at work, while tradespeople and unskilled workers were most likely to use drugs at work.

The most commonly used workplace drugs were painkillers and amphetamines and methamphetamines (stimulants), followed by cannabis and ecstasy. But alcohol was by far the most popular intoxicating substance used at work.

The survey also revealed that a substantial portion of workers who use alcohol or drugs at work appear to underestimate their negative affect on workplace safety. For example, only 17% of those who reported using alcohol at work also reported attending work while under the influence of alcohol, a discrepancy that suggests the respondents did not associate drinking at work with potentially dangerous impairment. Workplace drug users showed a similar discrepancy: they used drugs at work but did not think they were drug-impaired. The discrepancy may be because some drinking and drug use occurs among co-workers after work but before leaving the workplace, in places like canteens, lunchrooms, and changing rooms.

Says lead author Ken Pidd, "People may not think of a drink or a joint in the parking lot after work as a 'workplace' activity, but it does negatively affect workplace safety. Out of the 295 Australian workplace fatalities reported in 2006 and 2007, almost a third were caused by auto accidents while travelling to and from work. Showing up at work and leaving work while under the influence of alcohol or drugs may have a lot to do with those high numbers."


Journal Reference:

  1. Ken Pidd, Ann M. Roche, Femke Buisman-Pijlman. Intoxicated workers: findings from a national Australian survey. Addiction, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03462.x

MDMA (ecstasy): Empathogen or love potion?

MDMA — commonly known as ecstasy — increases feelings of empathy and social connection. These 'empathogenic' effects suggest that MDMA might be useful to enhance the psychotherapy of people who struggle to feel connected to others, as may occur in association with autism, schizophrenia, or antisocial personality disorder.

However, these effects have been difficult to measure objectively, and there has been limited research in humans. Now, University of Chicago researchers, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are reporting their new findings in healthy volunteers in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.

Dr. Gillinder Bedi, author, explained: "We found that MDMA produced friendliness, playfulness, and loving feelings, even when it was administered to people in a laboratory with little social contact. We also found that MDMA reduced volunteers' capacity to recognize facial expressions of fear in other people, an effect that may be involved in the increased sociability said to be produced by MDMA."

These data suggest that MDMA produces effects that make others seem more attractive and friendly, which may serve as a significant motivator in its use as a recreational drug. Importantly, it also makes others appear less threatening, which could increase users' social risk-taking.

"Within the context of treatment, these effects may promote intimacy among people who have difficulty feeling close to others," observed Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "However, MDMA distorts one's perception of others rather than producing true empathy. Thus, MDMA may cause problems if it leads people to misinterpret the emotional state and perhaps intentions of others."

Certainly, further research in controlled settings is necessary before MDMA could be considered for use as a psychotherapy treatment. But, these findings also underscore the need to understand more about the ways in which different drugs affect social experiences, given that abused drugs are so commonly used in social settings.


Journal Reference:

  1. Gillinder Bedi, David Hyman, Harriet de Wit. Is Ecstasy an 'Empathogen'? Effects of ±3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine on Prosocial Feelings and Identification of Emotional States in Others. Biological Psychiatry, 2010; 68 (12): 1134 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.08.003

MDMA (Ecstasy)-assisted psychotherapy relieves treatment-resistant PTSD, study suggests

MDMA (±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as Ecstasy), may one day offer hope for individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), even people for whom other treatments have failed. Clinical trial results out July 19 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology suggests that MDMA can be administered to subjects with PTSD without evidence of harm and could offer sufferers a vital window with reduced fear responses where psychotherapy can take effect.

Before MDMA became used recreationally under the street name Ecstasy, hundreds of psychiatrists and psychotherapists around the world administered MDMA as a catalyst to psychotherapy. MDMA was criminalized in the US in 1985 (it had been illegal in the UK since 1977). Several decades later, this study is the first completed randomised, double-blinded clinical trial to evaluate MDMA as a therapeutic adjunct in any patient population.

Belmont, MA-based Rick Doblin, Ph.D., President of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (a non-profit psychedelic and medical marijuana research and educational organization that sponsored the study), together with South Carolina-based psychiatrist Michael Mithoefer, MD and colleagues, conducted a pilot Phase II clinical trial with 20 patients with chronic PTSD persisting for an average of over 19 years. Prior to enrolling in the MDMA study, subjects were required to have received, and failed to obtain relief, from both psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.

Participants treated with a combination of MDMA and psychotherapy saw clinically and statistically significant improvements in their PTSD — over 80% of the trial group no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, stipulated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV-TR) following the trial, compared to only 25% of the placebo group. In addition, all three subjects who reported being unable to work due to PTSD were able to return to work following treatment with MDMA.

The trial centred on two eight-hour psychotherapy sessions scheduled about 3-5 weeks apart, where 12 subjects received MDMA, and eight took a placebo. Subjects were also given psychotherapy on a weekly basis before and after each experimental session. A blinded, independent rater tested each subject using a PTSD scale at baseline, and at intervals four days after each session and two months after the second session. The clinical response was significant — 10 of the 12 in the treatment group responded to the treatment compared with just two of the eight in the placebo group. During the trial, the subjects did not experience any drug-related Serious Adverse Events (SAEs), nor any adverse neurocognitive effects or clinically significant blood pressure or temperature increases.

After the two-month follow-up, subjects in the placebo group were offered the option to participate in the treatment process again, to receive MDMA on an open-label basis, acting as their own controls. Seven of the eight placebo subjects elected to receive MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, with successful treatment outcomes similar to the subjects initially randomized to MDMA.

PTSD involves exaggerated and uncontrolled fear responses. To treat these, psychotherapists need to help sufferers revisit traumatic experiences. But patients often suffer intolerable feelings when they revisit the trauma, or numb themselves emotionally, resulting in the psychotherapy having little effect. The goal of using MDMA is to temporarily reduce fear and increase trust without inhibiting emotions, especially painful emotions, allowing these patients a window where psychotherapy for their PTSD is effective.

MDMA's pharmacological effects include serotonin release, 5HT2 receptor stimulation and increase in levels of the neurohormones oxytocin, prolactin and cortisol.

Importantly, this trial involved concentrated periods of patient-therapist contact (31 hours over two months) including two all-day therapy sessions and overnight stays in the clinic. "These are not usual features of psychotherapy practice in the outpatient setting," says Michael Mithoefer. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy would require special clinics equipped for longer treatment sessions and overnight stays if an MDMA-based treatment were approved. "This method also involves patient preparation and close follow-up to support further processing of emotions and integration of cognitive shifts that may occur," Mithoefer adds, stressing that these are vital for safety and therapeutic effect.

Measures like these may prove a price worth paying, however, to alleviate the debilitating effects of PTSD on sufferers in future.

The authors caution that the study does have limitations — for example they did not look at gender and ethnic factors in their sample selection. Another important limitation was that most participants and trial investigators guessed accurately whether they were in the treatment or the placebo group. The placebo had no psychoactive effect and investigators could detect raised blood pressure and other symptoms in the MDMA group. A long-term follow-up to the study just published, evaluating subjects an average of about 40 months post-treatment, is underway.

The investigators have now received the go ahead from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a protocol for a three-arm, dose-response design that they expect will result in successful blinding. This new study is for US veterans with war-related PTSD, most from Iraq and Afghanistan and a few from Vietnam. MAPS is currently sponsoring MDMA/PTSD Phase 2 pilot studies in Switzerland and Israel, and is working to start additional pilot studies in Canada, Jordan and Spain.


Journal Reference:

  1. Michael C. Mithoefer, Mark T. Wagner, Ann T. Mithoefer, Lisa Jerome and Rick Doblin. The safety and efficacy of ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine -assisted psychotherapy in subjects with chronic treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder: the first randomised controlled pilot study. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 19th July 2010

Do recreational drugs make us fail to remember?

Have you ever forgotten to post an important letter or let an appointment slip your mind? A new study from UK researchers suggests that for those who regularly use ecstasy or other recreational drugs, this kind of memory lapse is more common. Their research, which uncovered potential links between memory deficits and cocaine for the first time, appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, published by SAGE.

Florentia Hadjiefthyvoulou, John Fisk, and Nikola Bridges from the University of Central Lancashire and Catharine Montgomery from Liverpool John Moores University wanted to delve deeper into the link between deficits in prospective memory (remembering to remember, or remembering to perform an intended action) and drug use.

The new research into prospective memory expands on previous studies, which have shown that ecstasy or polydrug users are impaired in performing a number of cognitive tasks, including verbal and spatial exercises. A team led by Fisk also published evidence in 2005 that those using ecstasy perform worse in deductive reasoning, too.

Prospective memory tasks can be either time or event based, which means that the external trigger to remember could be in response to an event, or because it is time to do something. The distinction is important because these memory tasks use somewhat different brain processes.

The researchers recruited 42 ecstasy/polydrug users (14 males, 28 females) and 31 non-users (5 males, 26 females) for the study — all were students. The students were quizzed about their drug habits (including tobacco, cannabis and alcohol), and given questionnaires to assess their everyday memory, cognitive failures and prospective and retrospective memory. They were then given a number of lab-based memory tests, including some that required students to remember something several weeks later. The results showed that recreational drugs such as ecstasy, or the regular use of several drugs, affect users' memory functions, even when tests are controlled for cannabis, tobacco or alcohol use. According to Fisk, memory deficits were evident in both lab-based and self-reported measurements of subjects' prospective memory.

The results also suggested that ecstasy/polydrug users "possess some self awareness of their memory lapses." The authors say that although ecstasy/polydrug users as a whole are aware of their memory problems they may be uncertain as to which illicit drug is behind the defects they perceive. "The present results suggest that these deficits are likely to be real rather than imagined and are evident in both time- and event-based prospective memory contexts," Fisk says.

One interesting finding that merits further study is an association between recreational cocaine use and memory lapses. "Further research is needed to clarify whether the cocaine-related deficits are limited to the ecstasy/polydrug population or whether they might be present among those persons whose recreational use is largely confined to cocaine," Fisk said. The authors believe that this is the first study to link recreational cocaine use with prospective memory deficits.

Prospective memory performance is dependent on the brain's pre-frontal executive resources (executive functions involve planning, organization, and the ability to mentally juggle different intellectual tasks at the same time). A number of studies have shown in particular that event-based prospective memory tasks use the brain's frontopolar cortex, also known as the Brodmann area 10, or BA10, although scientists understanding of this region is still far from complete. Event-based prospective memory tasks are also associated with the left superior frontal gyrus, which makes up around a third of the brain's frontal lobe, and is linked with self-awareness.

Meanwhile, time-based prospective memory tasks activate more diverse brain regions, including anterior medial frontal regions (linked to executive functions and personality), the right superior frontal gyrus and the anterior cingulate (linked to many functions from heart rate regulation to cognitive functions and empathy). In addition, these time-based tasks also use the BA10 and the superior frontal gyrus as event based tasks do.

The authors speculate that cocaine-related deficits observed on both the time- and event-based tasks might be due to cocaine's interaction with the BA10. Cocaine use could be associated with specific executive function deficits, which cause the prospective memory deficits.

Researchers have another difficult conundrum when investigating drugs' effects on memory: which came first — the memory defects or the drug use? It is hard to rule out the possibility of pre-existing differences between users and non-users that originated before users tried drugs. Sociodemographic factors, personal dispositions, or underlying psychopathology could all play a role.


Journal Reference:

  1. Florentia Hadjiefthyvoulou, John E Fisk, Catharine Montgomery and Nikola Bridges. Everyday and prospective memory deficits in ecstasy/polydrug users. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2010; DOI: 10.1177/0269881109359101

Cocaine or ecstasy consumption during adolescence increases risk of addiction

Exposure to ecstasy or cocaine during adolescence increases the "reinforcing effects" that make people vulnerable to developing an addiction. This is the main conclusion of a research team from the University of Valencia (UV), which has shown for the first time how these changes persist into adulthood.

"Although MDMA and cocaine are psychoactive substances frequently used by teenagers, very few studies have been done to analyse the short and long-term consequences of joint exposure to these drugs," says José Miñarro, lead author of the study and coordinator of the Psychobiology of Drug Addiction group at the UV.

The study, published in the journal Addiction Biology, shows for the first time that exposure to these drugs during adolescence leads to long-lasting changes that increase the reinforcing power of ecstasy or MDMA, and which last until adulthood.

Miñarro's team studied the joint consumption of different drugs in order to carry out an in-depth examination into the effects of this interaction. The scientists administered MDMA, cocaine and saline solution to mice over an eight-day period. "The animals exhibited an increase in vulnerability to re-establishing behaviour (relapse), showing a preference for certain environments previously associated with the pleasant effects of the drug," explains Miñarro.

The results highlight that the so-called "reinforcing effects" are greater in adult mice treated with ecstasy or cocaine during adolescence than in adolescent mice not exposed to these drugs. "Adolescence is a critical stage in development, during which time drug consumption affects plastic cerebral processes in ways that cause changes that persist right through to adulthood," adds the scientist.

Adolescence — the kingdom of polyconsumption

The results of various surveys, both national and international, show that one of the most common patterns of drug use is polyconsumption. Ecstasy is regularly consumed alongside other drugs such as alcohol, cannabis and cocaine. These same surveys show that 44% of cocaine users in Spain also take ecstasy, and this consumption takes place primarily during adolescence.

The State Study on Drug Use among Secondary School Students (ESTUDES 2007, Government Delegation for the National Plan on Drugs), showed that more than 75% of secondary school students who reported taking MDMA also said they used cocaine, while only 44.3% of cocaine users said they took ecstasy.


Journal Reference:

  1. Manuel Daza-Losada, Marta Rodríguez-Arias, María A. Aguilar & José Miñarro. Acquisition and reinstatement of MDMA-induced conditioned place preference in mice pre-treated with MDMA or cocaine during adolescence. Addiction Biology, 2009; 14 (4): 447 DOI: 10.1111/j.1369-1600.2009.00173.x