Effects of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine on Patient Utterances in a Psychotherapeutic Setting

Abstract

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) administered as an adjunct to talk therapy influences patient speech content and increases improvement in treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Data came from the recordings of Mithoefer et al. (2011). In the third therapeutic session studied, patients were assigned, double blind, to an MDMA or a placebo group. Condition-blind scorers listened to therapy recordings and scored utterances where patients initiated topics that were empathic (regarding others' emotions), entactic (requesting or appreciating physical touch), or ensuic (describing a change in their sense of themselves). Patients who received MDMA produced high levels of ensuic, empathic, and entactic utterances compared with those who received the placebo. Interrater discourse scoring was reliable. The relationship between the number of scored utterances and the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale scores measuring PTSD severity after the treatment was significant, and reanalysis grouped bimodally into "many" or "few" such utterances remained significant. MDMA assisted these patients in having meaningful and disorder-resolving thoughts and discourse in talk therapy.

Analysis of recreational psychedelic substance use experiences classified by substance

“…Natural language processing methods have been applied in experimental studies of the effects of psychedelic drugs such as LSD (Sanz et al 2021), psilocybin (Carrillo et al 2018), and MDMA (Agurto et al 2020;Baggott et al 2015;Bedi et al 2014;Carrillo et al 2018;Corey et al 2016;Marrone et al 2010;Sanz et al 2021). Combined with machine learning, they enabled the prediction of the psilocybin treatment response in patients with treatment-resistant depression (Carrillo et al 2018).…”

“…Combined with machine learning, they enabled the prediction of the psilocybin treatment response in patients with treatment-resistant depression (Carrillo et al 2018). The language of post-traumatic stress disorder patients (during therapy) predicted posttreatment symptoms after treatment with MDMA versus placebo, where MDMA produced more treatment-relevant utterances that were negatively related to posttreatment symptom severity (Corey et al 2016). Moreover, natural language processing-derived topic models predicted longterm abstinence outcomes in individuals who reported having quit alcohol, cannabis, opioid, or stimulant use after a psychedelic substance experience (Cox et al 2021).…”

A Systematic Review of the MDMA Model to Address Social Impairment in Autism

“…All studies tested young adults in their 20s-30s, with the exception of Corey et al (2016) whose mean participant age was 40.5 years old. Here, they also chronically used the unusual dose of 62.5 mg/kg [ 114 ]. Therefore, the effects of MDMA found in these participants are difficult to attribute a certain cause to, although the common theme of increased empathic utterances continues at this dose.…”

“…0.75 and 1.5 mg/kg MDMA increased positive emotion words, whereas 1.5 g/kg increased words describing another that were social and reflective of theory of mind (insight into another person’s mental state, which is often considered lacking in ASD [ 151 ]); increased time verbally interacting, words closer to “intimacy”, “friend”, “rapport” and “support”. One study administered an oral dose of 62.5 mg/kg with subsequent top-ups of 1.9 mg/kg, and held talking sessions, where they found that those participants exhibited increased ensuic (describing a change in their sense of self), empathic (regarding others' emotions) and entactic (inclination towards physical touch) utterances [ 114 ].…”

The Efficacy of MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Humans: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Corey et al [ 34 ] conducted a study based on audio recording data of twenty subjects from Mithoefer et al [ 19 ] with CAPS scores greater than 50. This analysis took a novel approach by simultaneously analyzing psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and discourse-level linguistics by examining the initiation of discourse topics by participants using MDMA or placebo.…”