Prospective memory, everyday cognitive failure and central executive function in recreational users of Ecstasy

Abstract

Chronic use of MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), or Ecstasy, is believed to lead to impaired psychological performance, including well-documented decrements in laboratory and field tests of retrospective memory. Less is known about the impact of Ecstasy on aspects of 'everyday' memory, despite obvious concerns about such effects. The three studies reported here focused on the impact of chronic Ecstasy use on prospective memory (PM), associated central executive function and other aspects of day-to-day cognition. In study 1 46 regular Ecstasy users were compared with 46 Ecstasy-free controls using the Prospective Memory Questionnaire (PMQ). Ecstasy users reported significantly more errors in PM (remembering to do something in the future); these findings persisted after controlling for other drug use and the number of strategies used to aid memory. No difference was found between representative subgroups on the Lies Scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. In study 2 a different group of 30 regular Ecstasy users and 37 Ecstasy-free controls was assessed on the PMQ and on a central executive task comprising verbal fluency measures. The results confirmed the significant impairments in long- and short-term PM and revealed corresponding impairments in verbal fluency. In study 3 15 Ecstasy users, 15 cannabis users and 15 non-drug users were assessed using the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, which requires participants to provide ratings of the frequency of various day-to-day cognitive slips. The results indicate that the Ecstasy users did not perceive their general cognitive performance to be worse than that of controls. Taken together, these results suggest that Ecstasy users have impaired PM that cannot be explained by an increased propensity to exaggerate cognitive failures. These may be attributable, in part, to central executive deficits that are due to frontal lobe damage associated with Ecstasy use. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prospective memory functioning among ecstasy/polydrug users: evidence from the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT)

“…While a trend was evident on both measures with ecstasy/polydrug users performing worse, cannabis only users achieving intermediate levels of performance and non illicit drug users performing best, cannabis only users did not differ significantly from non users of illicit drugs on either PM measure. The ecstasy/polydrugrelated deficit observed here in relation to non illicit drug users is consistent with previous findings from our own and other laboratories using self report (Hadjiefthyvoulou et al, in press;Heffernan et al, 2001a;2001b;Montgomery & Fisk, 2007;Rodgers et al, 2001; and laboratory measures (Hadjiefthyvoulou et al, in press;Rendell et al, 2007a). They also demonstrate the utility of the CAMPROMPT measure in detecting individual differences in PM performance among non clinical populations augmenting the existing literature in this regard (Groot et al, 2002;Wilson et al, 2005).…”

“…Self report measures of this construct have been developed (e.g., Crawford et al, 2005;Hannon et al, 1995) and in previous research from our laboratory, Fisk and co-workers have demonstrated apparent impairments on these measures among ecstasy/polydrug users (Montgomery & Fisk, 2007) and cannabis only users (Fisk & Montgomery, 2008). Other researchers have also reported deficits on self report PM measures among users of illicit drugs (Heffernan et al, 2001a;2001b;Rodgers et al, 2001; and studies from our own laboratory and elsewhere have revealed deficits among illicit drug users in laboratory measures of PM (Hadjiefthyvoulou et al, in press;Rendell et al, 2007a;Rendell et al, 2009). …”

“…While a number of researchers have used self-report measures to investigate PM deficits among illicit drug users (Heffernan et al, 2001a;2001b;Montgomery and Fisk, 2007;Rodgers et al, 2001;, to date relatively few studies in this area have used laboratory tests of prospective memory. McHale and Hunt (2008) administered two simple laboratory tests: remembering to press a timer 10 minutes after being instructed to do so and remembering to post an envelope back to the experimenter two days after the test session.…”

The differential effects of ecstasy/polydrug use on executive components: shifting, inhibition, updating and access to semantic memory

“…Ecstasy/polydrug users performed worse on the S-and C-letter categories (consistent with the results obtained by Bhattachary and Powell, 2001;Fox et al, 2002;and Heffernan et al, 2001). The deficit was more pronounced on the C-letter category.…”

“…However, this task also reveals equivocal results, with some studies finding ecstasy related deficits and others not (e.g. Bhattachary and Powell, 2001;Curran and Verheyden, 2003;Croft et al, 2001;Fox et al, 2002;Heffernan et al, 2001). Thus the present study also sought to further investigate word fluency deficits among ecstasy users.…”