MAPS has committed $5,300 to Dr. Franz Vollenweider at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich to co-sponsor a secondary study that will gather data for physiological assessments of subjects in Dr. Oehen’s MDMA/PTSD study. The additional study will use several different measures to assess the psychophysiology of PTSD by using EEG/ERP and other biological measures such as heart rate variability (HRV) and pre-pulse inhibition (PPI). These parameters will be measured before and after the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to allow researchers to evaluate changes in various areas of the brain and body. We expect that this additional neurophysiological and biological data will document the efficacy of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. The amendment to Dr. Oehen’s protocol to include Dr. Vollenweider’s research was previously approved by Dr. Oehen’s Ethics Committee (IRB) in September 2006.
For more on this study, see Dr. Oehen’s article in the Fall 2006 MAPS Bulletin.
