Trial reportThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2019
MDMA Increases Cooperation and Recruitment of Social Brain Areas When Playing Trustworthy Players in an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Trial report in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analytic analysis of the acute effects of MDMA on empathy and emotion recognition in humans.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism.Current neuropharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- MDMA enhances positive affective responses to social feedback.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Subjective and neurocognitive profiling of clinical doses of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in healthy volunteers: implications for therapeutic use.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Altered States and Social Bonds: Effects of MDMA and Serotonergic Psychedelics on Social Behavior as a Mechanism Underlying Substance-Assisted Therapy.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Review
- The Psychedelic Future of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Review
- The conceptual framework for the therapeutic approach used in phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- From antidepressants and psychotherapy to oxytocin, vagus nerve stimulation, ketamine and psychedelics: how established and novel treatments can improve social functioning in major depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- A narrative exploration of psilocybin's potential in mental health.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Review
- MDMA for treatment of PTSD and neurorehabilitation in military populations.NeuroRehabilitation · 2024Review
- Social Psychopharmacology: Novel Approaches to Treat Deficits in Social Motivation in Schizophrenia.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2023Review
- Review
- Foraging optimally in social neuroscience: computations and methodological considerations.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- Acute effects of MDMA on trust, cooperative behaviour and empathy: A double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2021Article
- Couple Therapy With MDMA-Proposed Pathways of Action.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Article
- Modulation of Social CognitionFrontiers in psychiatry · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Social decision-making is fundamental for successful functioning and can be affected in psychiatric illness and by serotoninergic modulation. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the archetypal paradigm to model cooperation and trust. However, the effect of serotonergic enhancement is poorly characterized, and its influence on the effect of variations in opponent behavior unknown. To address this, we conducted a study investigating how the serotonergic enhancer 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA) modulates behavior and its neural correlates during an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma with both trustworthy and untrustworthy opponents. We administered 100 mg MDMA or placebo to 20 male participants in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. While being scanned, participants played repeated rounds with opponents who differed in levels of cooperation. On each round, participants chose to compete or cooperate and were asked to rate their trust in the other player. Cooperation with trustworthy, but not untrustworthy, opponents was enhanced following MDMA but not placebo (respectively: odds ratio = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.42-2.84,
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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.