weg, M.D and John H. Gruzelier, Ph.D. the authors of the aforementioned article. Their findings were published in The American Journal of Psychology, issue # 158, volume 10, in October of 2001. (1) In their experiment 22 long-term MDMA users, 19 long-term cannabis users, and 20 drug-nave comparison subjects were evaluated in an attempt to determine the effect MDMA use has on serotonergic function in humans. In order to acquire the necessary data measurements were made with EEGs (electroencelphalagrams,) to measure brain activity in the frontal cortex where serotonin is very important. EOGs (electrooculograms) were used to measure eye movements. These movements were calculated as the difference between voltages above and below the left-eye. In order to measure the serotonin an auditory intensity dependence function was employed. 5-HT in the primary auditory cortex (the part of the brain used to process sound stimulus) is thought to operate as a protective mechanism by attenuating cortical response to loud auditory stimuli. This means that auditory stimuli and the subjects’ response to said stimuli is a good measurement of serotonin levels. (15,19). An example of this would be if the response to a 100 deci-bell noise would not be proportionately larger than the response to a noise with only 60 deci-bells. This is a particularly good way to measure 5-HT levels in MDMA users because neocortex is one the primary areas of MDMA-related damage in non-human primates. (5-7). I extrapolated that similar damage is likely to occur in humans because I know humans are closely related physiologically to the aforementioned primates.The researchers screened the subjects in telephone interviews and excluded the ones who reported having suffered from neurological disturbances (these persons would bias the results because the sample would not longer be representational of the average healthy MDMA user.) Also excluded were subjects who too...
