REGULAR ECSTASY USERS RISKING LOSS OF MEMORY

Special Report: Drugs In Britain

Regular users of the drug ecstasy are inflicting so much damage to their
memory they frequently forget simple tasks and routinely lose their train
of thought while talking, according to UK research.

People who use the recreational drug regularly suffer significant
impairment to all aspects of their everyday memory, finds the research,
which will add to concerns over the worrying side effects of ecstasy. The
drug is reported to be used by between 200,000 and 500,000 people in
Britain, each weekend.

The research is among few studies of this subject, but previous work has
revealed the detrimental effects the drug has on recall and working memory.
This is the first time a danger to "prospective memory" - the planning
centre of the brain which keeps most people's lives in order - has been
revealed.

A team of psychologists, led by Tom Heffernan of the University of
Northumbria, looked at how ecstasy use affected the memories of clubbers in
the north-east. They found that people who took ecstasy regularly, between
eight and 10 times a month, had significant memory problems; they would
forget such things as setting their alarm clocks, and they had difficulty
with long-term episodic memory, forgetting to pass on messages.

The drug users also had problems with internally "queued memory", failing
to remember what they were saying half way through a sentence. "The
research adds to the growing body of evidence which suggests there are
psychological dangers associated with taking ecstasy. For example, people
have found it can contribute to depression, that it can make users more
irritable, and this study suggests it can impair your everyday memory,"
said Dr Heffernan.

The research, made public at the British Psychological Society's centenary
conference in Glasgow yesterday, was carried out by comparing the memories
of 40 adults, aged 23 on average, who took ecstasy regularly. Thirty-nine
others were included who did not take the drug. Allowances were made for
the tendency of ecstasy users to use more than one drug. The results were
replicated in a second study by one of Dr Heffernan's students.

Dr Heffernan is not sure why ecstasy impairs the memory of regular users,
but research in associated areas points to a biological explanation.

It is feared that regular use may cause damage to the frontal and
pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which are used in planning and strategy.

If the explanation lies in biology, Dr Heffernan said, it could have
particularly worrying consequences for young ecstasy users.

"There is some evidence that the frontal cortex is still developing in
teenagers and adolescents," he said. "If your brain is still developing in
parts, there is a strong possibility you could be seriously damaging this
development with ecstasy use."

The researchers plan to expand their study to see if the damage to memory
is permanent or whether the brain can be rehabilitated.