An hypothesis-driven analysis of brain functional connectivity during the acute effects of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)

CAVANNA, FEDERICO; FEILDING, AMANDA; CARHART-HARRIS, ROBIN; TAGLIAZUCCHI, ENZO

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXXII Congress of the Argentine Society for Research in Neuroscience; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

In spite of its discovery during the early 20th century , the notable psychoactive properties of the substituted amphetamine 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, also known as ?ecstasy?) were first discovered and documented in the 1970? s by the pioneering work of the american chemist Alexander Shulgin (Shulgin, 1986). These ps ychoactive effects include strong f eelings of well-being and empathy along with mild to moderate stimulation and occasional perceptual distortions (Peroutka et al., 1988). The classification of MDMA as a Schedule 1 substance in 1970 halted ongoing investigations on its eff ects on brain activity and on its promising use as an adjoint for psychotherapy. Recently , the first contemporary neuroimaging study of MDMA performed by the Imperial College Group (Carhart-Harris et al., 2015) adopted an exploratory approach to reveal the alterations in global brain activity produced by the the substance (using a sample group of 25 individuals in combination with a double-blind placebo comdition). Here, we adopt a hypothesis driven approach based on the selection of regions of interest from the Neurosynth database(ht tp://neurosynth.org/), corresponding to terms related to the subjective eff ects of MDMA (e.g. ?empathy? , ?love? , ?emotion? , ?peace? , ?serotonin? , etc). Using these regions as centers of coordinates for seed functional connectivity analysis, we revealed a core set of functional changes that could underlie the subjective acute eff ects of MDMA.