This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (14)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Charles Grob, MD; Gary Bravo, MD; Roger Walsh, MD, PhD
University of California, Irvine Medical Center Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior 101 City Dr S Rte 88 Orange, CA 92668

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1990;47(3):288.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Recent attention has been drawn to the purported neurotoxic dangers associated with 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). Price et al¹ have attempted to assess possible serotonergic neurotransmitter damage by contrasting serum prolactin response to the challenge with intravenous L-tryptophan in subjects with a history of MDMA use vs control subjects. Their primary finding was a blunted rise in the expected serum prolactin level in MDMA users, but not to a statistically significant degree. The importance of this finding appears to be questionable and perhaps misleading. Even if the data had yielded a statistically significant result, would such a correlation necessarily imply causation?

A methodological limitation to the study would appear to be that subjects were not adequately screened on selection to exclude those who were using other psychotropic drugs. There is no mention that toxicology screens were ever performed. In fact, three subjects (33%) admitted to marijuana use . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?