Abstract
Rationale
Most reports of the effects of methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) on speech have been anecdotal.
Objectives
The current study used a within-participant design to assess the effects of methamphetamine and MDMA on speech.
Materials and methods
Eleven recreational users of amphetamines completed this inpatient, within-participant, double-blind study, during which they received placebo, methamphetamine (20, 40 mg), and MDMA (100 mg) on separate days. Following drug administration, study participants described movies viewed the previous evening and completed mood scales.
Results
Methamphetamine increased quantity of speech, fluency, and self-ratings of talkativeness and alertness, while it decreased the average duration of nonjuncture unfilled pauses. MDMA decreased fluency and increased self-ratings of inability to concentrate. To determine if methamphetamine- and MDMA-related effects were perceptible, undergraduates listened to the participants’ movie descriptions and rated their coherence and the speaker’s mood. Following methamphetamine, descriptions were judged to be more coherent and focused than they were following MDMA.
Conclusions
Methamphetamine improved verbal fluency and MDMA adversely affected fluency. This pattern of effects is consistent with the effects of these drugs on functioning in other cognitive domains. In general, methamphetamine effects on speech were inconsistent with effects popularly attributed to this drug, while MDMA-related effects were in agreement with some anecdotal reports and discordant with others.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant from NIDA (Hart, R01 DA03746) and served as Gina Marrone’s undergraduate honor’s thesis project at Barnard College. We gratefully acknowledge Isabel Cajori Jay, Chantal Sowemimo-Coker, and Christina Perry for their help collecting listener-rated data. We also thank Drs. Stephen Heishman, David Epstein, and Peter Balsam for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.
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Marrone, G.F., Pardo, J.S., Krauss, R.M. et al. Amphetamine analogs methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) differentially affect speech. Psychopharmacology 208, 169–177 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1715-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1715-0