MDMA Can Impair Your Memory!
Have you ever been at a party where you are just standing there looking around while sipping on your drink? You can see every one having a great time but then out of the corner of your eye you see people doing something different. It looks like they are trying to keep what they are doing secret but you walk over there despite it. When you get over there you ask them what they are hiding from everyone else? That's when the look at you and tell you it is ecstasy but that they don't want everyone to want some, so they offer you some to stay quiet.
Now if you have never done ecstasy or any type of hard drugs before, this can be a scary moment for you. You do not know the side effects of it or how it could affect you later in life. MDMA (Ecstasy) use has become more prominent in recent years, especially at UMass. With the rising Electronic Dance Music (EDM) culture, the taking of ecstasy has increased over the years. EDM and ecstasy use are two things that just go hand and hand. EDM shows have even been canceled at UMass due to fear of students overdosing on MDMA.
In 2001, Zakzanis and Young did a study on how continued ecstasy use in humans can impair your memory over the course of a year. Several studies have found that prolong ecstasy use can damage serotonin levels in the brain in animals and possibly humans. This could mean that a proportion of prolong ecstasy users could be at risk for long term neurotoxicologic effects. This is especially true in the hippocampus, a region in the brain that plays an important role in the forming and consolidation of new memories. Even though there is evidence that promotes this, little research has been done on MDMA and memory impairment. Luckily, Zakzanis and Young decided to research this unanswered question.
Zakzanis and Young got fifteen MDMA users to participate in the study. Every participant was recruited by word of mouth, meaning that they were self-referred by hearing about...