Whilst cocaine stimulates the dizzy dopamine in your brain, the warm fuzzy feeling experienced by people on MDMA is caused by a massive dump of serotonin in their system. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, same as dopamine and is thought to be a key player in mood regulation. MDMA also triggers the release of dopamine and noradrenaline and, combined with the flood of serotonin stimulates feelings of love, excitement, sociability and happiness, which is why it is such a popular party drug. However, as is always the way, what goes up must come down. The brain combats the massive amounts of serotonin by kicking the systems that destroy it into overdrive. This means that it will destroy too much of it, resulting in a hangover consisting of low mood, energy and concentration that takes a while to recover. Away from college kids at parties, some scientists have been looking into MDMA as a potential treatment for PTSD as it has been shown to increase brain activity between the hippocampus and amygdala - something that the brains of PTSD patients stuggle with. Unfortunately, even relatively small doses of MDMA is thought to damage brain cells and even cause irreversible brain damage, so just popping some Molly is not going to be all that beneficial for PTSD sufferers. However, by studying it we could come up with a safe alternative that works in the same way, without the brain damage.
