Previous antidepressant use may blunt the effectiveness of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD

New research suggests that MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is less effective among those who have recently used selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a common psychiatric medication. The findings have been published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

“As a neuropharmacologist, I think about how drugs act in the brain with receptor targets,” said study author Allison Feduccia, the director of the education platform Psychedelic.Support. “We know MDMA and antidepressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, in particular) bind to the same receptors in the brain.”

“It’s been known that if you give an SSRI at the same time as MDMA, the effects of MDMA are reduced. It wasn’t known how prior use of this class of antidepressants would affect how people feel when they take MDMA.”