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Can MDMA Improve Our Learning?
By Alyson Valdez

In “Psychedelics as a Path to Social learning,” Alison Gopnik discusses how the use of psychedelics could help treat illnesses, such as PTSD and anxiety. She successfully supports her argument by showing the results of MDMA studies on mice, emphasizing how the drug influences early openness to experience and abilities to learn from social information. 

Gopnik also includes information about “plasticity” (the ability for the brain to learn from new experiences) and how there are “sensitive periods” of plasticity for certain things, like language and the visual system. Alison continues to defend the beneficial use of MDMA by portraying the differences between young mice and adult mice, emphasizing how younger mice with higher plasticity moved towards colors that were associated with social experiences, while adult mice stayed stagnant. However, after dosing the adult mice with MDMA, their ability to learn over the weeks continually increased. Gopnik effectively defends the benefits of MDMA by comparing the mice’s ability to learn before and after the drug. 

Additionally, Alison emphasizes how MDMA allows people to feel especially close to those around them due to its ability to enhance serotonin and oxytocin, two chemicals involved in happiness, social closeness, and trust. 

The main question is, should the national government take actions towards legalizing MDMA for medicinal purposes? The FDA has already approved further studies on the benefits of this psychedelic; Gopnik seems to think it would be beneficial for openness, learning, and therapy - and I’m right there with her.