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Neuropsychiatric Consequences (Atypical Psychosis and Complex-Partial Seizures) of Ecstasy Use: Possible Evidence for Toxicity-Vulnerability Predictors and Implications for Preventative and Clinical CarePsychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland, modestin{at}bli.unizh.ch Two case reports of ecstasy abuse and its serious neuropsychiatric complications are presented. The first patient developed a florid paranoid psychosis resembling schizophrenia after repeated long-term recreational ecstasy abuse, and significant alterations with intermittent paroxysmal discharges were found in his electroencephalogram. The second patient showed an atypical paranoid psychosis with Fregoli syndrome and a series of complex-partial epileptic seizures with secondary generalization after a first single ecstasy dose. Both subjects presented considerable vulnerability; the first a minimal brain dysfunction after perinatal asphyxia and a persisting attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the second a long-lasting opioid addiction. In vulnerable individuals, dose-independent ecstasy abuse can lead to unpredictable and potentially dangerous neuropsychiatric sequelae which require proper initial assessment and adequate treatment.
Key Words: case report complex-partial epilepsy ecstasy Fregoli syndrome MDMA 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine paranoid psychosis prevention side-effects
Journal of Psychopharmacology, Vol. 17, No. 3,
342-345 (2003) |
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