MDMA Therapy For Chronic PTSD: Neuroimaging With Veterans & First Responders Provides Further Evidence

The legendary non-profit’s private arm, MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC), announced that Frontiers in Psychiatry has published its first functional neuroimaging study evaluating how MDMA-assisted therapy works in people with PTSD.

The MAPS study aimed at assessing how MDMA may help the therapeutic process by measuring brain activity and functional connectivity between key regions in the brain thought to involve PTSD in both veterans and first responders, before and two months after treatment.

Results show that changes in functional connectivity between these brain regions were related to a reduction in PTSD severity after treatment with the psychedelic.

Additionally, the study revealed a trend suggesting a strengthening of the resting state functional connectivity between the amygdala -the brain’s fear center- and the hippocampus, two regions that become dysregulated in PTSD.

"These data add to our understanding of the biological rationale for using MDMA combined with therapy in the treatment of PTSD," said MAPS PBC’s CEO Amy Emerson. "The results suggest that treatment with MDMA-assisted therapy may help reset the dysregulation in the brain caused by PTSD and that the effects are durable even two months after treatment."

Study co-author and psychiatry professor Dr. Mark S. George further explained the potential implications. 

"This is an important brain imaging study because we can see how MDMA-assisted therapy actually turns down the fear and PTSD circuit in the brain. Although we are not imaging the direct brain regions where MDMA works, we can see, in a dose-dependent fashion, how the therapy may help reduce the fear response in the brain of patients with PTSD while they are remembering their trauma,” stated Dr. George, calling it “an important early step."

More On The Study

The Phase 2 brain imaging study had participants with moderate to severe PTSD complete three split-dose sessions with 125 mg plus 62.5 mg of MDMA accompanied by preparation and integration sessions. 

Resting state and task-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data were acquired while participants listened to a trauma-related and neutral audio script they created based on a personal traumatic experience and their normal morning routine.

All participants were imaged at baseline prior to therapy and then at follow-up visits two months after their last MDMA dosing session.

The data shows that, before treatment, participants had larger activation in brain areas involved in self-referential processing and autobiographical memory when they were listening to their trauma audio script compared to when they were listening to their neutral audio script. 

Yet two months after the last treatment session, the contrast between the trauma and neutral scripts was significantly less, suggesting a decreased visual imagery during traumatic memories after MDMA-assisted therapy. 

Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by Irina Anosova and ANDREI ASKIRKA on Shutterstock.