ReviewMolecular psychiatry2026
Subjective and neurocognitive profiling of clinical doses of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in healthy volunteers: implications for therapeutic use.
Review in Molecular psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Healthcare Providers' Perspectives on Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Across Clinical Contexts: "I Can Offer Medical Assistance in Dying, but I Can't Prescribe Psychedelics".Global advances in integrative medicine and healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
MDMA's history spans military experimentation, recreational use, and clinical trials for PTSD treatment, reflecting both promise and controversy. While studies in heavy users suggested possible neurotoxicity, evidence remains inconclusive. Clinical trials show that one to three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can alleviate PTSD symptoms, yet regulators have criticized inadequate reporting of (positive) adverse events. To clarify safety, this narrative review examines placebo-controlled single-dose studies in healthy volunteers, focusing on MDMA's acute and subacute effects on subjective state and neurocognitive function relevant to therapeutic applications. Single doses of 75-125 mg enhance mood, empathy, trust, arousal, and prosocial feelings through monoamine reuptake inhibition and release. Post-acutely, transient monoamine depletion may cause fatigue and low mood. During intoxication, MDMA transiently impairs memory encoding via increased 5-HT signaling and 5-HT2A activation but does not heighten suggestibility. Inhibitory control and executive function are largely preserved, while motor coordination and cognitive flexibility decline modestly. These effects vary with metabolism, immune response, drug interactions, and context, underscoring the need for personalized monitoring. It is inferred that, acutely, positive affect may enhance therapeutic alliance and openness as well as susceptibility to boundary violations; amnestic effects may support trauma processing by facilitating fear extinction and disrupting negative memory reconsolidation; whereas temporary reductions in attention and cognitive flexibility may call for structured, emotionally focused therapeutic settings. MDMA's distinct neurocognitive profile offers clinical promise but complicates trial design by compromising blinding and inflating expectancy, necessitating their quantitative assessments and inclusion of similar comparator drugs to ensure reliable evaluation of efficacy.
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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.