Ecstasy use depletes brain chemical, study finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Ecstasy, the amphetamine-like drug made popular by "raves" and other mass dancing events, can severely deplete levels of a brain chemical linked with mood, researchers said Monday.

This could explain why users report they feel depressed as they come down off a high, the Canadian team of researchers said.

They said a 26-year-old man who had died of a drug overdose had very low levels of serotonin in his brain. Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical linked with mood, appetite, sleep and emotions.

The man had been using Ecstasy for nine years, and in the last months of his life had also started using cocaine and heroin, the researchers wrote in the journal Neurology.

"This is the first study to show that this drug can deplete the level of serotonin in humans," Stephen Kish of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada, who led the study, said in a statement.

"The levels of serotonin and another chemical associated with serotonin were 50 to 80 percent lower in the brain of the Ecstasy user."

Ecstasy, known chemically as methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is related to the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant amphetamine. It causes brain cells known as neurons to release serotonin.

Ecstasy users say the drug makes them feel intimacy with other people and more aware of their emotions.

"Some of the behavioral effects of this drug are probably due to the massive release and depletion of serotonin," Kish said. "And the depression that people feel after going off the drug could also be explained by the depletion of serotonin in the brain."

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