{"id":2891,"date":"2009-07-21T14:28:09","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T13:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2009-07-21T14:28:09","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T13:28:09","slug":"e-makes-you-forget-things-fail-to-see-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2009\/07\/e-makes-you-forget-things-fail-to-see-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"E Makes You Forget Things & Fail To See Patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The results of a new British study suggest the recreational drug\u00a0 Ecstasy impairs memory and the ability to visually discern patterns,\u00a0 researchers claimed yesterday.\u00a0 Ecstasy users performed relatively poorly in the joint Cambridge\u00a0 University-University of East London study, particularly on memory-related\u00a0 tasks. Forty adults participated; 20 had taken an average of\u00a0 170 Ecstasy tablets over four years and 20 had never taken it.\u00a0 All participants had used various drugs in the past including\u00a0 LSD, amphetamines, cocaine and cannabis.\u00a0 \u2018These findings of memory problems due to Ecstasy use should\u00a0 raise concerns, particularly since the group studied were only\u00a0 early-stage and not long-term users,\u2019 says Dr Barbara Sahakian, reader in clinical neuropsychology at Cambridge.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

These results add to a growing body of research that has demonstrated\u00a0 the harmful effects of Ecstasy: the drug is known to affect cognition\u00a0 and mood regulation, and recent evidence suggests it is a neurotoxin\u00a0 at certain doses.\u00a0 The study participants were tested on a series of CANTAB tasks\u00a0 normally used to identify cognitive problems in patients with\u00a0 dementia or neurological damage. The two groups performed equally\u00a0 in a number of tasks, but Ecstasy users significant impairment\u00a0 on several others. Most of these involved memory use, the research\u00a0 team says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the study\u2019s researchers at the University of East London, Dr Andy Parrot, has said about Ecstasy: \u2018the more you use, the\u00a0 more you suffer memory problems. One in five novice users suffer memory loss, while almost three-quarters of heavy users do. Depression\u00a0 is another big problem; it is increased even in former moderate\u00a0 users, he said.\u00a0 According to a survey of 1000 clubbers undertaken by Britain\u2019s\u00a0 dance culture magazine Mixmag, regular Ecstasy users are 25% more likely to suffer a mental health disorder than the rest\u00a0 of the population.\u00a0 One in four regular Ecstasy users had potentially serious psychiatric\u00a0 disorders, compared to the national average of less than one in five the survey reportedly showed. Published in January, the\u00a0 survey was based on readers filling out questionnaires. Respondents\u00a0 were also twice as likely to have seen a doctor about mental\u00a0 health issues, with half of them concerned about depression.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source: Author Dr. B. Sahakian. Published on www.scoop.co.nz, June 2002.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The results of a new British study suggest the recreational drug\u00a0 Ecstasy impairs memory and the ability to visually discern patterns,\u00a0 researchers claimed yesterday.\u00a0 Ecstasy users performed relatively poorly in the joint Cambridge\u00a0 University-University of East London study, particularly on memory-related\u00a0 tasks. Forty adults participated; 20 had taken an average of\u00a0 170 Ecstasy tablets over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-and-behaviour","category-ecstasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}