MDMA may have defended those who suffered from the attack on Nova from the injury, suggests the study

When Dawn approached on the morning of October 7, 2023, many party participants at the Nova Music Festival near Gaza border have taken illegal recreational drugs such as MDMA or LSD.

Hundreds were high when, shortly after sunrise, Hamas militants attacked the site.

Now the neuro scientists who work with survivors from the festival say that there are early signs that MDMA is also known as ecstasy or moths – perhaps a certain psychological protection against injury.

The preliminary results, which are currently being considered in the coming months, suggest that the drug is associated with more positive mental states – both during the event and the month after.

A study conducted by scientists at the Haifa University of Israel can contribute to the growth of scientific interest in how MDMA can be used to treat psychological trauma.

It is believed that for the first time scientists managed to study mass injury when a large number of people were under the influence of drugs that change the mind.

Hamas -Zbraja killed 360 people and abducted dozens on the festival, where 3,500 people held parties.

“We had people hiding under the bodies of our friends for hours while being on LSD or MDMA,” said Professor Roy Solomon, one of those who conduct the study.

“It says that many of these substances create plasticity in the brain, so the brain is more open to change.

The study monitored the psychological reactions of more than 650 survivors from the festival. Two -thirds of them were under the influence of recreational drugs, including MDMA, LSD, Marijuana or Pnilocybin – a compound contained in hallucinogenic mushrooms – before the attacks occurred.

“MDMA, and especially MDMA, which did not mix with anything else, was the most protective,” the study showed, according to Prof. Solomon.

He said that those who were in MDMA during the attack seemed to be in the first five months after five months when a lot of processing was going on.

“They slept better, had less mental suffering – they did better than people who did not take any substances,” he said.

The team believes that the proocity hormones caused by drugs – eg oxytocinWhich helps to contribute to the connection – helped to reduce fear and increase the sense of society between those who escape from the attack.

And even more importantly, they say they left those who survived more open for love and support from their families and friends when they were at home.

It is clear that the study is limited only to those who have survived the attacks, which makes it difficult to determine whether specific drugs helped or interfere with the chances of the victims.

But the researchers found that many survivors, such as Michal Akana, firmly believe that it played a role – and they say that faith can help them recover after the event.

“I feel it saved my life because I was as high as I am not in the real world,” she told me. “Because ordinary people do not see all these things – it’s not normal.”

Without drugs, she believes that she just froze or collapsed to the floor, and was killed or enthusiastic about militants.

Closers in different countries already have Experiment with Psychotherapy with MDMA for post -traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) In a tested setting – though Only Australia this approved As treatment.

The countries that have rejected it include the United States, where the nutrition and medicine management has caused concern for developing research that treatment may not offer prolonged benefits and potential risk of heart problems, injuries and abuse.

MDMA is classified as a class A drug in the UK and is associated with liver, kidney and heart problems.

In Israel, where MDMA is also illegal, psychologists can only use it to treat customers on an experimental basis.

Previous Nova study conclusions are carefully accompanied by some of them Israeli doctors experiment with MDMA as PTSD treatment after October 7.

Dr. Anna Croat-Gros, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Research at the Israeli Center for Metiv Psychotrauma, called the original conclusions as “really important” for therapists such as her.

She is currently experimenting using MDMA for the treatment of PTSR in Israeli military, and was experiencing the ethics of the vulnerable psychological state when the war is going on.

“At the beginning of the war, we asked if we were able to do it,” she said. “Can we give people MDMA if there is a risk of air siren?

Dr. Croat Gros says that the early signs of therapeutic use of MDMA are encouraging, even among military veterans from chronic PTSD.

She also made old assumptions about the “rules” of therapy – especially about the duration of classes that should be adjusted when working with customers under the influence of MDMA, she says.

“For example, this has changed our thoughts about 50-minute therapy sessions with one patient and one therapist,” Dr. Croat-Gros told me. “The presence of two therapists and long sessions – up to eight hours is a new way of therapy. They look at people very holistic and give them time.”

She says this new longer format shows promising results, even without MDMA patients, with a high level of 40% in the placebo group.

The Israeli Society itself also changed its approach to injuries and therapy after 7 -October attacks, according to Danny Brom, the director of the founder of the Psychotrauma Center at the Duke in Jerusalem and the older figure in the field.

“It is as if this is the first injury we are experiencing,” he said. “I saw wars here, I saw a lot of terrorist attacks, and people said,” We don’t see injuries here. ”

“Suddenly, there seems to be a general opinion that everyone is injured now and everyone needs treatment. This is the wrong approach.”

According to him, it is a sense of security that many Jews believed that Israel would provide them. He says these attacks revealed a collective injury associated with the Holocaust and generations of persecution.

“Our story is full of massacres,” the psychologist told me. “As a psychologist who is now in Israel, we face the opportunity to work with a lot of injuries that have not previously been treated, like all our stories for 2000.”

Collective trauma, combat trauma, drugs that change mind, sexual attacks, hostages, survivors, staff, injured and injured-Israeli injuries faced with a complex cocktail issues from customers who are now poured into therapy.

The scale of this problem with mental health is reflected in Gaza, where a large number of people were killed, wounded or left homeless after a destructive 15 -month war – where there are miserable resources that help a deeply injured population.

The Gaza war, caused by Hamas attacks on Israeli communities in October 2023, was suspended in January in a six -week truce, during which Israeli hostages conducted by Hamas exchanged in Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

But on both sides, the point is that peace and safety are needed to start healing.

The truce ended last weekend, with 59 Israeli hostages still in captivity Hamas. A lot of gases are waiting with their bags to restore the war.

Meanwhile, Nova survived, Michal Okhan, says she feels that some have been expected to have moved out of the attack over time, but they were still affected.

“I wake up with that and I go to bed with that, and people don’t understand,” she told me.

“We live this every day. I feel like the country has supported us in the first months, but now they feel:” Okay, we need to go back to work, back to life. “But we can’t.”

Additional Reporting Orena Rosenfeld and Naomi Sherbel-Bola