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Speed-freak mouse ravers squeak their last

LISTENING to loud music while on speed could be bad for your health.
Especially if you’re a mouse.

“It seems that listening to pulsatile music strengthens the toxic effects of
methamphetamine,” says Jenny Morton of Cambridge University. She exposed mice
given the drug to silence, white noise or loud music—either music by The
Prodigy or Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor, which share a similar tempo, she
says.

Loud music alone didn’t harm the mice. In fact, all those given injections of
plain salt water instead of speed fell asleep during the “rave”. But the loud
music seemed to intensify the effects of methamphetamine. Of the 40 mice exposed
to Bach, 4 died during or after the experiment, and no fewer than 7 of the 40
exposed to The Prodigy died. Morton doesn’t think mice can tell the difference
between violin concertos and rave music, however. “They just heard pulsating
noise,” she says.

The murine ravers also behaved abnormally. Mice on methamphetamine usually
charge around for half an hour, lapse into agitated repetitive movement called
stereotypy, then charge around for another half-hour or so before becoming
normal again.

This was the pattern for mice exposed either to white noise or silence. But
the mice listening to the music spent the whole four-hour rave glued to the spot
or walking backwards, showing agitated stereotypic movements. “They jiggle
backwards and forwards and move their noses from side to side,” says Morton.

These mice also suffered more brain damage, as measured by the number of
glial “repair” cells found in brain regions that are targeted by
methamphetamine. “If you saw how the mice behaved, you wouldn’t want to take
methamphetamine,” says Morton. “I might go to raves, but I wouldn’t take
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  • More at:
    NeuroReport (vol 12, p 3277)