ArticleNeuropharmacology2018
Separating the agony from ecstasy: R(-)-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine has prosocial and therapeutic-like effects without signs of neurotoxicity in mice.
Article in Neuropharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acute effects of R-MDMA, S-MDMA, and racemic MDMA in a randomized double-blind cross-over trial in healthy participants.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Trial
- History, pharmacology and therapeutic mechanisms of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).British journal of pharmacology · 2026Review
- The helioscope effect: A new framework for evaluating trauma-related memory processing in psychedelic experiences.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- 5-HTMolecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Ecstasy, molly, MDMA: What health practitioners need to know about this common recreational drug.Disease-a-month : DM · 2025Review
- Is the stereoisomer R-MDMA a safer version of MDMA?Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Review
- Therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics and entactogens.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Review
- Balancing Therapeutic Efficacy and Safety of MDMA and Novel MDXX Analogues as Novel Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder.Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2023Review
- Article
- Effects of a psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonist on anxiety-related behavior and fear processing in mice.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Article
- Effects of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine on Conditioned Fear Extinction and Retention in a Crossover Study in Healthy Subjects.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Article
- Altered brain activity and functional connectivity after MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Psychotherapy-supported MDMA treatment for PTSD.Cell reports. Medicine · 2021Article
- Article
- Ventral Tegmental Area Dysfunction and Disruption of Dopaminergic Homeostasis: Implications for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.Molecular neurobiology · 2021Review
- Hallucinogens in Mental Health: Preclinical and Clinical Studies on LSD, Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ketamine.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Review
- Neuronal and peripheral damages induced by synthetic psychoactive substances: an update of recent findings from human and animal studies.Neural regeneration research · 2020Review
- Sensitization to the prosocial effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).Neuropharmacology · 2019Article
- Stereoselective effects of the second-generation synthetic cathinone α-pyrrolidinopentiophenone (α-PVP): assessments of conditioned taste avoidance in rats.Psychopharmacology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
S,R(+/-)-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (SR-MDMA) is an amphetamine derivative with prosocial and putative therapeutic effects. Ongoing clinical trials are investigating it as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other conditions. However, its potential for adverse effects such as hyperthermia and neurotoxicity may limit its clinical viability. We investigated the hypothesis that one of the two enantiomers of SR-MDMA, R-MDMA, would retain the prosocial and therapeutic effects but with fewer adverse effects. Using male Swiss Webster and C57BL/6 mice, the prosocial effects of R-MDMA were measured using a social interaction test, and the therapeutic-like effects were assessed using a Pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction paradigm relevant to PTSD. Locomotor activity and body temperature were tracked after administration, and neurotoxicity was evaluated post-mortem. R-MDMA significantly increased murine social interaction and facilitated extinction of conditioned freezing. Yet, unlike racemic MDMA, it did not increase locomotor activity, produce signs of neurotoxicity, or increase body temperature. A key pharmacological difference between R-MDMA and racemic MDMA is that R-MDMA has much lower potency as a dopamine releaser. Pretreatment with a selective dopamine D1 receptor antagonist prevented SR-MDMA-induced hyperthermia, suggesting that differential dopamine signaling may explain some of the observed differences between the treatments. Together, these results indicate that the prosocial and therapeutic effects of SR-MDMA may be separable from the stimulant, thermogenic, and potential neurotoxic effects. To what extent these findings translate to humans will require further investigation, but these data suggest that R-MDMA could be a more viable therapeutic option for the treatment of PTSD and other disorders for which SR-MDMA is currently being investigated.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.