MDMA for Severe PTSD: Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase 3 Study

nature.com

34 points·pmoriarty··6 comments

Honestly, not a terribly surprising result. I'm glad these sorts of studies are allowed to be performed.

I'd imagine untreated PTSD can lead to all sorts of debilitating anxiety issues, with ensuing substance abuse problems to cope. Leveraging the fight or flight response reduction effect of MDMA in conjunction with therapy to treat it makes all sort of sense, and I'm glad the science seems to be backing it up. I'll be curious to see if the remission % difference will hold long term (not that this needs to be a one-and-done kind of thing)

I've done MDMA assisted therapy and it's been completely life changing. It has the impact of doing a decade of therapy in a day. The lasting effect is not from the drug, it's from the ability to learn and understand so much more about yourself so quickly.

Did they really find patients who couldn't tell MDMA from a placebo?

In other trials they've used different psycho-active drugs as the placebo. I can't tell what they used here.

An inactive placebo has been selected as the control to allow differentiation of any additional MDMA effect from psychotherapy alone. This pivotal study will generate unequivocal assessment of safety data and demonstration of efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy compared to psychotherapy plus placebo.

Someone who has never had mdma and got the placebo might not be sure of it..?

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