Clinic for Drug Addiction, Institute of Psychiatry, Clinical Centre Vojvodina Hajduk Veljkova 1, 21 000 Novi Sad, Serbia.
Psychiatr Danub. 2011 Mar;23(1):53-9.
As a result of long-term heroin abuse we can see impairment of cerebral structures, that leads to specific psychopathological and neuro - physiological deficits in the cognitive and connative areas. There is a positive correlation between the mentioned deficits and the duration of heroin abuse. The memory is a cognitive function highly sensitive to toxic effects of opiates. The aim of this study was to establish the psychiatric and psychological consequences of heroin abuse, in the sense of verbal memory deficits, and the specific relation between mentioned deficits with the duration of abuse.
The research was devised as a prospective study, including ninety heroin addicts, divided into three groups, based on the abuse duration. The following instruments were used for data collecting: questionnaire, with basic social-demographic and addictive characteristics of subjects and Rey Test of Verbal Learning, a neuropsychological test for verbal memory estimation.
Only the examinees who have abused heroin for less than a year obtained scores within the domain of the expected performances within the part of the test which relates to the direct verbal memory, as well as, the part of the test that relates to delayed verbal memory. With regard to the mentioned criteria, the difference between examinees with different length of opiates abuse is statistically important (direct memory: F=2.706; p=0.063, delayed memory: F=2.538; p=0.045). With the increase of heroin abuse length the number of examinees with a rising learning curve is decreased significantly, and the number of examinees with a flat learning curve is increased (Chi-square=19.589; p=0.003).
Heroin abuse, lasting longer than one year, is connected with impairment of short-term and delayed verbal memory. The intensity of the mentioned effects is higher with addicts who use a higher daily dose of heroin.
由于长期滥用海洛因，我们可以看到大脑结构的损伤，这导致认知和联想区域出现特定的精神病理学和神经生理缺陷。这些缺陷与海洛因滥用的持续时间之间存在正相关关系。记忆是一种对阿片类药物毒性作用高度敏感的认知功能。本研究的目的是确定海洛因滥用的精神和心理后果，即在言语记忆缺陷方面，以及与滥用持续时间有关的特定关系。
该研究设计为前瞻性研究，包括 90 名海洛因成瘾者，根据滥用时间分为三组。为了收集数据，我们使用了以下工具：问卷，其中包括受试者的基本社会人口统计学和成瘾特征，以及 Rey 言语学习测试，这是一种用于评估言语记忆的神经心理学测试。
只有滥用海洛因不到一年的受试者在直接言语记忆部分以及延迟言语记忆部分的测试中获得了预期表现范围内的分数。根据这些标准，不同海洛因滥用时间的受试者之间的差异具有统计学意义（直接记忆：F=2.706；p=0.063，延迟记忆：F=2.538；p=0.045）。随着海洛因滥用时间的增加，具有上升学习曲线的受试者数量显著减少，而具有平坦学习曲线的受试者数量增加（卡方=19.589；p=0.003）。
持续一年以上的海洛因滥用与短期和延迟言语记忆的损害有关。每日使用更高剂量海洛因的成瘾者，这些影响的强度更高。
