Relationship Between Ecstasy and Memory in the Human Body

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Relationship Between Ecstasy and Memory in the Human Body

Rationale and Variables: The Experiment that was conducted in class determined the affects of 'ecstasy' or MDMA on the participants' memory. In addition to testing for their ability to recall information it also looked at the number of false memory that were related to the actual word "slow" in the class study. In the experiment Dr. Earleywine used a list of words that were to be memorized, and recall in a given time. This study is related to another experiment conducted by A.C Parrott and J. Lasky. In their study they looked at the effects of "ecstasy" or MDMA on mood and cognition. They tested three groups: non- MDMA, novice-MDMA users, and regular MDMA users. They used different methods to test the three groups, included in the methods was word recall, which was also used in the class study by Dr. Earleywine. The result from that experiment showed that "ecstasy" or MDMA users did have memory problems. Another study was also conducted by A.C. Parrott, A. Leess, N.J Garnham M. Jones, and K. Wesnes, which was relate also to the other experiments. This experiment was conducted using three groups: non-MDMA, novice-MDMA and regular MDMA users. They used series of methods to conduct their study, and found their results similar to the earlier study. Analyzing the finding of the two studies, Dr. Earleywine decided to do a study with the mind set of making a connection between the rates of intrusions that participants who have used MDMA, compared with the rate of intrusions with participants, who did not use MDMA. The independent variables were the two groups MDMA users and non-MDMA users, and the dependent variables are the intrusions, and words recalled.

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...t would back up the other studies that were conducted. The second problem with the study was that there was only a single trial of word recall task. The study should have not based their result in one memory based trial. If there were at least two or three-targeted word then the results would have been large and could have been compared between the different recalls that the participants wrote down. The result would have been different, because the more information that the study receives the better and more reliable that result becomes. Which in turn would have supported the two articles that related to the study. The third problem with the study was it failed to determine if other drugs that also impair memory were used with ecstasy. To make the study only exclusive to MDMA it should be taken to consideration if other drugs that impaired memory were also used.

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