Using the recreational drug Ecstasy reduces the amount of a brain chemical that controls mood, pain perception, sleep, appetite and emotions, researchers say. The chemical is called serotonin.
In the study, published in the journal Neurology, the scientists report how they compared the brain of a 26-year-old man who died of a drug overdose to those of 11 individuals who did not abuse drugs. The man had used Ecstasy for nine years and cocaine and heroin in the final months of his life. "The levels of serotonin and another chemical associated with serotonin were 50 to 80 percent lower in the brain of the Ecstasy user," said study author Stephen Kish of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada.
"This is the first study to show that this drug can deplete the level of serotonin in humans." Ecstasy, known chemically as methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is structurally related to the hallucinogen mescaline and the stimulant amphetamine. MDMA causes& neurons, or nerve cells, to release serotonin.

The Federal penalty for manufacturing or selling ecstasy can lead to fines up to four million dollars. A ringleader or head manufacturer of ecstasy could receive life in prison.

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University demonstrated that 4 days of exposure to the drug caused damage that persisted 6 to 7 years later.

Some pills sold as ecstasy actually contain little or no MDMA. Pills may contain other drugs such as PMA or another MDMA analogue, DXM, household chemicals such as Ajax or rat poison, or other (sometimes lethal) byproducts.

Memory tests of people who have taken Ecstasy as compared to non-drug users have shown that the Ecstasy users had lower scores.