Neurocognitive characterizations of Russian heroin addicts without a significant history of other drug use

Abstract

Research on the neurocognitive characteristics of heroin addiction is sparse and studies that do exist include polydrug abusers; thus, they are unable to distinguish neurocognitive effects of heroin from those of other drugs. To identify neurocognitive correlates specific to heroin addiction, the present study was conducted in St. Petersburg, Russia where individuals typically abuse and/or become addicted to only one substance, generally alcohol or heroin. Heroin addicts were recruited from an inpatient treatment facility in St. Petersburg. Three comparison groups included alcoholics, addicts who used both alcohol and heroin, and non-abusers. Psychiatric, background, and drug history evaluations were administered after detoxification to screen for exclusion criteria and characterize the sample. Executive Cognitive Functions (ECF) that largely activate areas of the prefrontal cortex and its circuitry measured include complex visual pattern recognition (Paired Associates Learning), working memory (Delayed Matching to Sample), problem solving (Stockings of Cambridge), executive decision making (Cambridge Decision Making Task), cognitive flexibility (Stroop ColorWord Task) and response shifting (Stop Change Task). In many respects, the heroin addicts were similar to alcohol and alcohol\heroin dependent groups in neurocognitive deficits relative to controls. The primary finding was that heroin addicts exhibited significantly more disadvantageous decision making and longer deliberation times while making risky decisions than the other groups. Because the nature and degree of recovery from drug abuse are likely a function of the type or pattern of neurocognitive impairment, differential drug effects must be considered.

Resting-state Abnormalities in Heroin-dependent Individuals

“…Similar findings have been reported in previous studies on diverse substance abuse disorders (Watts and Strogatz, 1998;Sporns and Zwi, 2004;Honey et al, 2009). Furthermore, in another study, active heroin users showed diminished and risky decision-making, as well as longer consideration time relative to the control group (Fishbein et al, 2007;Li et al, 2013d). Similar findings have been reported in psychopathic abstinent heroin-addicted individuals when compared to their non-psychopathic counterparts (Vassileva et al, 2007;Li et al, 2013d).…”

“…Many studies have been performed on users being short-term abstinent (Lee and Pau, 2002;Mintzer et al, 2005;Fishbein et al, 2007;Verdejo-García et al, 2007b;Wang et al, 2010;Jiang et al, 2011Jiang et al, , 2013Li et al, 2013bLi et al, , 2013c)whereas in others active drug users were recruited (Liu et al, 2008(Liu et al, , 2009aQiu et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013). Moreover, other researchers have studied either mixed cohorts (Bora et al, 2010), including participants in different abstinence phases (Ma et al, , 2011 or prolonged-abstinent individuals (Liu et al, 2009b;Wang et al, 2011;Lin et al, 2012;Moreno-López et al, 2012;Zeng et al, 2013).…”

Systematic review of ERP and fMRI studies investigating inhibitory control and error processing in people

“…Specific behavioural deficits for inhibitory control were not convincingly shown in either ERP or fMRI studies, which is in line with conflicting findings in behavioural studies in this domain. [77][78][79][80] While the number of fMRI studies is limited, available fMRI results suggest that activation in the DLPFC related to inhibitory control in individuals with alcohol dependence may be dysfunctional. Furthermore, inhibitory control in patients with poor baseline inhibitory control may be improved with the cognitive enhancer modafinil.…”

Versión española del Cuestionario Disejecutivo (DEX-Sp): propiedades psicométricas en adictos y población no clínica

“…Diversos estudios han mostrado evidencia del deterioro del funcionamiento ejecutivo asociado al abuso de sustancias, como la heroína (Fishbein, Krupitsky, Flannery, Langevin, Bobashev, Verbitskaya et al, 2007;Prosser, Cohen, Steinfeld, Eisenberg, London y Galynker, 2006), cocaína (Forcada, Pardo y Bondía, 2006;Hester y Garavan, 2004), éxtasis (Schilt, de Win, Koeter, Jager, Korf, van den Brink et al, 2007), alcohol (Landa, Fernández-Montalvo y Tirapu, 2004;Landa, Fernández-Montalvo, Tirapu, López-Goñi, Castillo y Lorea, 2006) o policonsumos (Giancola y Mezzich, 2003;Verdejo y Pérez-García, 2007). Los resultados obtenidos en estos estudios muestran que puede ser útil contar con un instrumento de evaluación de línea base que permita desarrollar un screening inicial de déficit en las funciones ejecutivas en sujetos que acceden a un tratamiento por problemas derivados del uso de drogas.…”