MDMA may have protected the survivors of Nova's attack, suggesting a study

When the dawn approached the morning of October 7, 2023, many of the party of the Music Festival in Nova near the Gaza border were accepted illegal drugs for recreation such as MDMA or LSD.

Hundreds of them were tall when, shortly after sunrise, Hamas artillerymen attacked the place.

Now neurologists working with survivors of the festival say that there are early signs that MDMA – also known as ecstasy or Molly – may have provided some psychological protection against trauma.

The preliminary results, which are currently reviewed with a view to publishing in the coming months, suggest that the drug is related to more positive mental conditions – both during the event and in the months thereafter.

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

It is believed that this is the first time scientists have been able to study an event of mass injuries, with a large number of people under the influence of the changing minds.

The Hamas Ormonists killed 360 people and kidnapped dozens more at the festival, where 3,500 people coupled.

“We had people hiding under their friends' bodies for hours while in LSD or MDMA,” says Prof. Roy Salomon, one of those who are conducting the study.

“It is said that many of these substances create plasticity in the brain, so the brain is more open to change. But what happens if you withstand this plasticity in such a terrible situation -will it be worse or better?”

The study followed the psychological responses to more than 650 survivors of the festival. Two -thirds of them were influenced by recreation medicines, including MDMA, LSD, marijuana or psilocybin – the compound found in hallucinogenic mushrooms – before attacking.

“MDMA, and especially MDMA, which is not mixed with anything else, was the most protection,” the study found, according to Prof. Salomon.

He said that those of MDMA during the attack seem to be a lot better mentally during the first five months after that, when much processing is done.

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

The team believes that the prosocial hormones caused by the drug – as oxytocinWho helps promote bonding – has helped reduce fear and strengthen the feelings of companionship between those who run away from the attack.

And even more importantly, they seem to have left the survivors more open to receiving love and support from their families and friends after being home.

It is clear that the study is limited only to those who have survived the attacks, which makes it difficult to determine any security of whether specific medicines have helped or impeded the chances of victims to escape.

But the researchers have found that many survived, such as Michal Ohan, firmly believe that it has played a role – and they say that faith itself can help them recover from the event.

“I feel that it saved my life because I was so tall as if I'm not in the real world,” she told me. “Because ordinary people can't see all these things – it's not normal.”

Without the drug, she believes that she would just freeze or collapsed on the floor and was killed or captured by the artillerymen.

Clinicians in different countries already have Experimented with psychotherapy using MDMA for post -traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a trial setting – though Only Australia has approved it as a treatment.

The countries that have rejected it include the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration cites concerns about designing studies that treatment may not offer long -lasting benefits to the potential risk of heart problems, injury and abuse.

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

In Israel, where MDMA is also illegal, psychologists can only use it to treat clients based on experimental research.

Preliminary findings from the NOVA study are closely followed by some of them Israeli clinicians experimenting with MDMA as PTSR treatment after October 7S

Dr. Anna Harvud-Gros, a clinical psychologist and director of research at the Israeli Psychotraum Center, described the original discoveries as “really important” to therapists like her.

She is currently experimenting with the use of MDMA to treat PTSR within the Israeli military and is worried about ethics to causing a vulnerable psychological state in clients when war is fought.

“At the beginning of the war, we asked if we were able to do this,” she said. “Can we give people MDMA when there is a risk of air -rabban cheeses? This will reconfigure them potentially. This study showed us that even if there is a traumatic event during therapy, MDMA can also help process this trauma.”

Dr. Harvud Gross says the early indications of MDMA therapeutic use are encouraging, even among chronic PTSRs.

It has also increased the old assumptions about the “rules” of therapy – especially the duration of sessions that need to be adjusted when working with clients under the influence of MDMA, she says.

“For example, this changed our thoughts for 50-minute therapeutic sessions, with one patient and one therapist,” Dr. Harvud Gross told me. “Having two therapists and long sessions – up to eight hours – is a new way to do therapy. They look at people very overall and give them time.”

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

The Israeli society itself has also changed its approach to trauma and therapy after the attacks on October 7, according to Danny Brom, the founder of the Director of the Psychotraum at the Hospital Duke in Jerusalem and a higher figure in the industry.

“It's like this is the first trauma we are experiencing,” he said. “I saw wars here, I saw many terrorist attacks, and people said,” We don't see a trauma here. ”

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

What broke, he said, is a sense of security that many Jews think Israel will provide them with. These attacks have revealed a collective trauma, according to him, related to the Holocaust and generations of persecution.

“Our story is full of massacre,” the psychologist of Azmont Meshulam told me. “As a psychologist now in Israel, we are facing the opportunity to work with many injuries that have not been treated before, like all our stories for 2000 years.”

Collective trauma, combat trauma, changing minds of drugs, sexual assault, hostages, survivors, body collectors, injured and injured specialists in Israel's trauma are facing a complex cocktail of customers who are now flooded in therapy.

The scale of this challenge for mental health is reflected in Gaza, where a huge number of people have been killed, wounded or left homeless after a devastating 15 -month war – and where there are scarce resources to help a deeply traumatic population.

The Gaza War, caused by Hamas's attacks against Israeli communities in October 2023, was halted in January in a six -week truce, during which Israeli hostages held by Hamas were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

But on both sides, it makes a little sense that the peace and security required to start healing have arrived.

The truce has leaked last weekend, with 59 Israeli hostages still being captured by Hamas. Many Gazani are waiting with packed bags to resume the war.

Meanwhile, the survivor of Nova Michal Ohana says she believes that some over time, some expect her to move from the attacks, but she is still affected.

“I wake up with this and go to sleep with it and people don't understand,” she told me.

“We live this every day. I feel that our country supports us in the first months, but now after a year they feel,” Okay, you have to go back to work, back to life. “But we can't.”

Additional reporting from Oren Rosenfeld and Naomi Sherbel-Ball