Dawid's PERSONAL MESSAGE

MDMA is by no means a new substance in the drug landscape. Its recreational use sparked in the 1980s and has been sustained until now. However, veiled by a mix of urban legend, unscrupulous reporting and particularly harsh regulation; its mechanisms of action have remained mostly unknown.

One of our goals here at the Beckley Foundation is to break the taboo surrounding these illicit substances, which involves supporting the necessary scientific research to understand how psychoactive substances work in the brain.

It is within this framework that we have contributed to the study whose results have recently been published by Imperial College. This piece of research, a part of the Beckley-Imperial Psychopharmacological Research Programme sheds light on how the human brain functions under the influence of MDMA.

To do so, volunteers rated recollections of positive and negative memories under the influence of this substance while a state-of-the-art brain scan examined patterns of blood flow to different regions of the brain.

The results are fascinating. The substance that is known to many as a 'party drug', actually reduces blood flow to certain parts of the brain in a way that seems to lead people under its influence to qualify memories in a more positive light than they would under regular circumstances.

In other words, positive memories are perceived as more vivid, emotional and positive, and negative memories are felt as being less negative.

The implications of these results, which suggest a clear positive emotional bias, are encouraging in relation to the potential therapeutic uses of MDMA. Indeed, preliminary research on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy has shown that this quality of MDMA could help people overcome PTSD.