From Club To Clinic: How MDMA Could Help Some Cope With Trauma

[Nelson Vergel]

MDMA, often known as Ecstasy or Molly, has for decades been used as a party drug — consumed in clubs, fuel for all-night raves. But lately, the substance is also being used in very different settings, for a very different purpose: to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved phase two clinical studies of the treatment, and they're now underway in four locations. Results so far have been promising, according to reporter Kelley McMillan, who has been investigating this new use of MDMA and has written about it in the current issue of Marie Claire.

"The findings from these most recent studies are supporting the earlier phase two findings, which found that 83 percent of participants were cured of their PTSD — compared to 25 percent who were cured from talk therapy alone," she tells NPR's Rachel Martin.

From Club To Clinic: How MDMA Could Help Some Cope With Trauma

 

[Nelson Vergel]

Singleton, S. P., Wang, J. B., Mithoefer, M., Hanlon, C., George, M. S., Mithoefer, A., Mithoefer, O., Coker, A. R., Yazar-Klosinski, B., Emerson, A., Doblin, R., & Kuceyeski, A. (2023). Altered brain activity and functional connectivity after MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. Frontiers in psychiatry, 13, 947622. Frontiers | Altered brain activity and functional connectivity after MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder

“The first neuroimaging study performed in a cohort of MDMA-assisted therapy participants uses fMRI to measure patients’ brain response to traumatic events before and two months after a full course of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. Audio recordings of each participant recounting their index trauma were played back to them while in the scanner. The researchers found that patient brain response to these recordings was lower at the two-month followup compared to baseline, particularly in the cuneus, which may suggest a decreased intensity of the relived experience. This study included 9 subjects from a MAPS phase II dose-response trial.” – Parker Singleton