Regular Use of Meow Meow Linked to Memory Loss

Australian researchers have found that regular use of a drug, known as meow meow, can lead to a number of long term cognitive effects including significant memory loss.

Meow meow is a street name for a synthetic psychoactive drug known as mephedrone that is also sold as Drone or MCAT. The drug is gaining popularity among social circles in Australia as it is cheap and easily accessible. However researchers have found it to be more addictive and provide more powerful high than cocaine or ecstasy.

Now researchers from University of Sydney said that the drug can also lead to a number of long term memory problems. Researchers led by Craig Motbey conducted the study on a group of rats that were given a Novel Object Recognition Test and found that the rats spent an equal amount of time checking out both the new and an old object.

Motbey said that people may not experience the negative effects of the drug immediately and by the time they would realize that the drug was not healthy, it could be too late. "We know virtually nothing about the drug. Now there's a big push to find out if it's doing damage. t might be something that causes subtle damage that builds up, but we don't realize anything's wrong until a couple of years later when we have tens of thousands of fried brains", he said.

Source: Medindia