2003b). It should be noted, however, that seven of the eight ecstasy users were also included in this previous study. Increased task load was correlated with increased activation in the premotor cortex and was again associated with smaller activations in inferior temporal regions in pure ecstasy users compared with HCs (Daumann et al. 2003b). In addition, when comparing ecstasy-only users with

polyvalent ecstasy users, lower activation was found in the angular gyrus and the striate cortex, suggesting that ecstasy use, and not concomitant use of other drugs, was responsible for the specific abnormalities found in ecstasy users (Daumann et al. 2003b). As no performance differences were present, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical interpretation of these imaging results is somewhat problematic, because the possibility of ceiling effects cannot be ruled out. In a small N-back study by Jacobsen et al. (2004), left hippocampus deactivation was observed in HCs, but not in ecstasy users, an effect that was especially noticeable during high WM load Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and was negatively correlated with time since last ecstasy use. The authors Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical hypothesized that left hippocampal activity might be associated with working memory deficits found in ecstasy users (Fox et al. 2001; Reneman et al. 2001), and that this may recover with sustained abstinence, as suggested by

the inverse relationship between hippocampal activation and duration of abstinence. However, in view of the small sample sizes and the established

role of the hippocampus in episodic rather than working memory, this study is clearly in need of replication. Moreover, altered activation of the left Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical hippocampus is probably due to the neurotoxic effect of ecstasy on selleck compound serotonergic neurons that modulate inhibitory circuits in the hippocampus, which is in line with studies showing reduced glucose metabolism in the left hippocampus Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of adult ecstasy users (Buchert et al. 2001; Jacobsen et al. 2004). Given that hippocampal involvement is a common feature of resting-state network activity, one may question the specificity of these findings (Damoiseaux et al. 2006). In a more recent N-back fMRI study, Bustamante et al. (2011) found similar task performance between cocaine-dependent males and HCs, but the cocaine group showed less activity MycoClean Mycoplasma Removal Kit in the left inferior parietal cortex compared with HCs. The authors suggested that decreased parietal activity might reflect cocaine-induced attentional deficits, although this explanation is not easy to reconcile with intact performance as observed in their study. In summary, during WM tasks performed in ecstasy and cocaine users compared with HCs, activation differences were found in frontal, parietal, and temporal areas, ACC, and left hippocampus, in the absence of performance differences.