Yu Jiang, Zhang Shun, Epstein David H, Fang Yuxia, Shi Jie, Qin Hufu, Yao Shujun, Le Foll Bernard, Lu Lin
Tangshan Mental Health Hospital, Tangshan, China.
Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2007 Mar;86(3):485-92. doi: 10.1016/j.pbb.2007.01.008. Epub 2007 Jan 18.
Environmental stimuli associated with drug taking have been known to elicit drug craving and increase the likelihood of relapse, and sex differences have been observed in the development of drug addiction and relapse to drug taking. Differential cue paradigms (drug-related imagery scripts and drug-related paraphernalia) have been used to investigate cue-induced drug craving. However, there is little research on the possible gender differences in responses to drug cues in heroin-dependent individuals. This study examined whether two different stimuli, drug-related imagery scripts and drug-related paraphernalia, produce similar or different patterns of cue reactivity in heroin-dependent men and women.
In the laboratory sessions, 26 male and 23 female heroin-dependent subjects were exposed to script-guided imagery of heroin-related cue situations and to heroin-related paraphernalia (e.g., needles, syringes, spoons, cigarette filters, and aluminum foil). Heroin craving, subjective anxiety, emotion state ratings, and cardiovascular changes were assessed.
Significant increases in heroin craving were seen with drug-imagery scripts or drug paraphernalia but not with neutral-relaxing imagery or neutral-item handling. In addition, drug imagery and paraphernalia produced significant increases in subjective anxiety, negative emotions, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate, as well as decreases in positive emotion. Paraphernalia exposure was somewhat more effective than imagery scripts in inducing heroin craving, primarily reflecting a lower response to imagery scripts among men. Most other dependent measures also differed by gender, and each gender difference occurred with imagery scripts only or with paraphernalia only.
The present results indicate that heroin-imagery scripts and heroin paraphernalia each induce heroin craving and emotional and cardiovascular changes, but that the changes show a complex pattern of gender differences that may need to be taken into account in future laboratory studies.
已知与吸毒相关的环境刺激会引发药物渴望并增加复发的可能性，并且在药物成瘾的发展和复吸方面已观察到性别差异。差异线索范式（与药物相关的意象脚本和与药物相关的用具）已被用于研究线索诱发的药物渴望。然而，关于海洛因依赖个体对药物线索反应中可能存在的性别差异的研究很少。本研究考察了两种不同的刺激，即与药物相关的意象脚本和与药物相关的用具，在海洛因依赖的男性和女性中是否产生相似或不同的线索反应模式。
在实验室环节中，26名男性和23名女性海洛因依赖受试者接触了海洛因相关线索情境的脚本引导意象以及海洛因相关用具（如针头、注射器、勺子、香烟过滤嘴和铝箔）。评估了海洛因渴望、主观焦虑、情绪状态评分和心血管变化。
药物意象脚本或药物用具会使海洛因渴望显著增加，但中性放松意象或处理中性物品则不会。此外，药物意象和用具会使主观焦虑、负面情绪、收缩压和舒张压以及心率显著增加，同时积极情绪减少。接触用具在诱发海洛因渴望方面比意象脚本更有效，这主要反映出男性对意象脚本的反应较低。大多数其他相关测量指标也因性别而异，并且每种性别差异仅在意象脚本或仅在用具的情况下出现。
目前的结果表明，海洛因意象脚本和海洛因用具都会诱发海洛因渴望以及情绪和心血管变化，但这些变化呈现出复杂的性别差异模式有待未来实验室研究中加以考虑。
