Daniel Coman1,2, Lihong Jiang1, Fahmeed Hyder2,3, Kevin Behar4
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; 2Quantitative Neuroscience with Magnetic Resonance (QNMR), Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; 3Departments of Diagnostic Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; 4Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
(+/-) 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) use results in significant hyperthermia in muscle and brain. MDMA-induced changes on brain temperature distribution and its dynamics is of great importance in assessing its harmful CNS effects. Temperature distributions in rat brain can be obtained within minutes by using a new exogenous temperature-sensitive probe, TmDOTMA-. Our results indicate that the temperature increase in the anesthetized rat brain after a dose of 20 mg/kg MDMA is relatively homogenous, with subcortical regions showing slightly faster temperature increase than cortical regions.