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Old 01-02-2006, 10:59 PM   #1
Lolly
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Ecstasy and the Blood/Brain Barrier

I thought this research was really interesting, if the effect this drug has on lowering the blood brain barrier could be harnessed for good and used to make brain mets treatments more effective...


"...The brain is protected by a fence of tightly packed cells, called the blood-brain barrier. This prevents all but the smallest molecules from passing through. But the new experiments show that MDMA – the chemical name for ecstasy, or “E” – somehow forces open that barrier, allowing larger molecules access to the brain..."

Ecstasy may damage the brain’s physical defences

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn8314.html

16:5314 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Alison Motluk


The drug ecstasy reduces the brain’s defences, reveals a new study of rats, leaving it vulnerable to invasion by viruses and other pathogens.

The researchers behind the study warn of "clinical considerations which may apply to the treatment of people who abuse MDMA". For example, anaesthetics could find it easier to penetrate the brain, "greatly increasing the risk of unwanted sedation". And they say infections could cause permanent damage to brain cells or alter the ability of the brain to function normally.

The brain is protected by a fence of tightly packed cells, called the blood-brain barrier. This prevents all but the smallest molecules from passing through. But the new experiments show that MDMA – the chemical name for ecstasy, or “E” – somehow forces open that barrier, allowing larger molecules access to the brain.

Bryan Yamamoto at Boston University, US, and colleagues gave rats four doses of MDMA over 8 hours. “We were trying to approximate a human dosaging pattern,” says Yamamoto. The scientists also injected a blue dye, made of molecules too large to get into the rats' brains under normal circumstances.

One day later, the researchers found the dye had made its way into parts of the brain, such as the caudate and the hippocampus. Ten weeks later, despite no further doses of MDMA being given, new injections of dye were still passing through the blood brain barrier.

Ten weeks in rats could be considered the equivalent of five to seven years in humans. “It does seem to be a very protracted opening,” says Yamamoto. But, as yet, he is unable to say for sure whether the breach is permanent...

Therapeutic use

But the mechanism remains a mystery. Among the possibilities is that the pre-exposed animals may be metabolising the drug more quickly, he says, or they may be ratcheting up antioxidant activity in their bodies, or they may be modifying their serotonin receptors.

Not all research on MDMA is into its negative effects. Stephanie Linley at FloridaAtlanticUniversity in Port St Lucie points out that the drug is now being investigated for clinical use in diseases as wide-ranging as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and terminal cancer.

These papers were presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in WashingtonDC, US.

Last edited by Lolly; 01-05-2006 at 09:06 AM..
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