MDMA avoided hostage traumas kidnapped by Hamas, says Israelite study. “Saved my life”

The drug best known as Ecstasy may have avoided trauma in people kidnapped by the Islamite group and hostage to the October 7 attack on the new music festival, in which 380 people died. Study is Israelite.

As the dawn approached, in the one that would become the most shadowy day of Israel, many festivals who were in Nova, near the border between Israel and Gaza, consumed illegal recreational drugs, among which MDMA (3.4-methylenodioxymethylamphetamine, also known as ecstasy or simply MD) and LSD (acids). Hundreds were under the influence of these same psycho -psycho drugs when, right after sunrise, Hamas armed soldiers attacked the enclosure.

Now, neuroscientists who work with festival survivors claim that there are initial signs that MDMA may have offered psychological protection against trauma to some of the hostages taken by the terrorist group.

Neuroplasticity: Good or bad?

The preliminary results of Israeli investigation – currently to be reviewed by pairs for publication scheduled for the coming months – suggest that the drug is associated with more positive mental statesboth during the event and in the months that followed.

The research of the University of Haifa, in Israel, It is the first of its kind on a massive traumatic eventwhere a large number of people were under the influence of psychoactive drugs, so it may be fundamental to the growing scientific belief that the MDMA can be used to treat psychological trauma.

Hamas armed men killed about 380 people and kidnapped dozens in the festival room, where 3500 people were.

“There have been people hiding under the bodies of their own friends for hours under the influence of LSD or MDMA,” reports Roy Salomon, one of those responsible for the research.

“It is possible that many of these substances create neuroplasticity [adaptem o cérebro a situações novas]which makes the brain more open to change, ”he explains. But what happens if we go through this neuroplasticity in such a terrible situation? Is it worse or better?

MDMA (alone) reduced fear and suffering

The research followed the psychological reactions of more than 650 festival survivors, of which two thirds were under the influence of recreational drugs before the attack, including MDMA, LSD, cannabis and “magical” mushrooms.

“MDMA, especially what was not mixed with other substances, was the one that protected the most [contra traumas]”concluded the study. According to Solomon, those who took MDMA during the attack seemed to deal much better with trauma in the first five months, which is when the brain processes most events. “They were sleeping better, they had less mental suffering … they were better than people who had not taken any substance,” he said.

The team believes that the pro-social hormones triggered by the drug-such as the oxytocinknown as the hormone of love, which helps to promote social bond – helped reduce fear and increase feelings of companionship among those who fled the attack.

Most importantly, according to researchers, it is the fact that the drug has made the survivors more receptive to the love and support of their families and friends when they returned home.

Regarding the role of the drug in the hypotheses of victims’ survival, however, it is not known whether the MDMA has helped or damaged the hypotheses of escape, since research is limited to survivors. But investigators say many of those who managed to escape firmly believe that drug use helped them protect themselves-and that this belief itself facilitates recovery.

“I feel that MDMA saved my lifeBecause I was as stroke as if I wasn’t in the real world, ”Michal Ohana told the BBC, who without the drug, believes he would have frozen or fallen to the floor and was killed or captured by armed men.

MDMA as a treatment after Hamas attacks?

Doctors from various countries have experienced MDMA assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a test environment, although only the Australia has approved as treatment. In Israel, where MDMA is also illegal, psychologists can only use it to treat clients experimentally.

The preliminary findings of the new study are being closely monitored by some of the Israeli clinicians who are experiencing MDMA as a treatment after Hamas attack.

Anna Harwood-Gross, a clinical psychologist and research director at the Center of Psychotrauma Metiv de Israel, described the initial discoveries as “very important.” He is currently experiencing the use of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress in Israeli Armed Forces and is concerned with the ethics of inducing a vulnerable psychological state in clients when there is a ongoing war.

“At the beginning of the war, we wondered if we would be able to do this,” he said. “Can we give MDMA to people when there is a risk of an air strike siren? This is potentially to swallow them. This study showed us that even if there is a traumatic event during therapy, MDMA can also help process this trauma. ”

Harwood-Gross states that the first nominations on the therapeutic use of MDMA are encouraging, even among military veterans with chronic post-traumatic stress. The survey also refuted old assumptions about the “rules” of therapy – especially the duration of sessions, which have to be adjusted when working with people on the influence of MDMA. A new, longer format is showing promising results, even with patients who do not consume MDMA – with a 40% success rate No placebo group.

Israeli society itself has also changed its approach to trauma and therapy after October 7 attacks, according to Danny Brom, director and founder of the Psychotrauma Metiv Center at Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem and an important figure in the sector.

“It’s as if this were the first trauma we are going through,” he said, “I saw wars here, I saw a lot of terrorist attacks and people said, ‘We have no trauma here.”

“Suddenly there seems to be a general opinion that now everyone is traumatized and everyone needs treatment. It’s a wrong approach, ”he stresses. What changed was the sense of security that many Jews believed that Israel gave them. These attacks revealed a collective trauma, he said, linked to the Holocaust and generations of persecution.

“Our history is full of massacres,” says psychologist Vored Atzmon Meshulam: “As a psychologist in Israel, we are facing an opportunity to work with many traumas that were not being treated earlier, like all our narratives over 2,000 years.”

The scale of this mental health challenge is reflected in Gaza, where a large number of people were killed, injured or was sheltered after 15 devastating months of war.