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Background and Aim: The number of longitudinal studies on cognitive functions in patients on buprenorphine-based agonist treatment is limited. Our objective was to assess the change in neurocognitive functions over the first 6 months of buprenorphine-naloxone (BNX) treatment for opioid dependence (OD) and compare cognitive functions on BNX and controls. Methods: We selected 60 patients with OD aged 18 to 55 years and 20 sex-matched controls; and excluded patients with other substance dependence, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), head injury, epilepsy, and severe mental illness. We assessed patients thrice: at baseline, 3, and 6 months and Controls once. Cognitive tests included Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), Iowa gambling task (IGT), trail making tests A and B (TMT-A and B), verbal and visual N-back test (NBT), and standard progressive matrices (SPM). We measured with-in group effect size with Cohen’s D (d). Results: A total of 24 participants completed at least one follow-up; 17 completed both follow-up assessments. All participants were men. At baseline, the patients performed worse than healthy controls in IGT, TMT-A, and B, and visual and verbal NBT. At 3 months, the performance of visual NBT improved significantly (d = 1.2 for NBT1; 1.3 for NBT2). At 6 months, additional performance improvements were seen in WCST (“perseverative error” d = 1.2), IGT (“net total score” d = 1.2), TMT-A (d = 1.1), and verbal NBT (“omission error” d = 1.7). Except for visual-NBT, results did not differ between patients and controls at both follow-ups. Conclusion: Cognitive flexibility, decision making, attention, working memory, and psychomotor speed showed improvements over 6 months of a stable dose of BNX.

Background:Neuropsychological deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been encouraged by brain imaging studies suggesting a putative fron to- striatial biological basis of the condition. Studies of neuropsychological functions in OCD have documented deficits in several cognitive domains, particularly with regard to visuospatial abilities, executive functioning, motor speed and memory. The Aim of the present study was to assess neuropsychological profile of patients with OCD. Objectives of the study were to assess and compare the neuropsychological profile of patients with OCD and matched healthy controls.Materials and Methods:Twenty clinically stable outpatients with ICD-10 diagnosis of OCD and equal number of normal controls matched for age, education, gender and handedness were studied using a battery of neuropsychological tests. The tests consisted of verbal and performance tests of intelligence, memory, perceptual motor functions, set test and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST).Results:On perceptual-motor functions, verbal fluency, executive functions (WCST), intelligence and memory patients with OCD did not show impairments comparable to healthy controls. An attempt to correlate the test findings with the duration of illness, stability of illness and the average drug dose was made and it was found that there was no correlation between the two.Conclusion:The present study does not provide evidence for a localized neuropsychological/cognitive impairment in OCD in cases that are stable for at least three months. Absence of impairments in perceptual-motor functions, verbal fluency, executive functions (WCST), intelligence, and memory does not agree with the results of other studies using these tests.

Background and Objectives Chronic opioid exposure has been linked with neurocognitive impairments. Evidence of residual impairment with cannabis use is less consistent. We investigated whether patients with opioid and cannabis dependence perform poorly compared with those with opioid dependence alone. Methods We recruited three groups of participants aged 18 to 55 years: opioid and cannabis dependence (OCaD; n = 21), only opioid dependence (OD; n = 19), and a control group (HC; n = 20). Subjects with other substance use, human immunodeficiency virus, head injury, epilepsy, and severe mental illness were excluded. Cognitive tests, performed after at least 1 week of abstinence, consisted of the Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), Iowa gambling task (IGT), trail making tests A and B (TMT‐A and B), verbal and visual N‐back test (NBT), and standard progressive matrices for intelligence quotient (IQ). The general linear model was used to compare the groups with age and years of education as covariates. Results IQ and severity of opioid dependence were comparable in the three groups. The mean duration of cannabis use was 76.2 (±39.4) months. Compared with the HC, both OD and OCaD had significant impairment on the IGT, WCST, TMTs, and NBT. No significant group difference was observed between the OD and OCaD groups. Discussion and Conclusions Opioid dependence is associated with impairments in decision making, executive function, working memory, and attention. Co‐morbid cannabis dependence had similar profiles of cognitive impairments. Scientific Significance Co‐morbid cannabis dependence might not add on to the existing cognitive dysfunction in opioid dependence. Further studies should be done with a larger sample. (Am J Addict 2020;29:120–128)

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