Wang Grace Y, Wouldes Trecia A, Kydd Rob, Jensen Maree, Russell Bruce R
School of Pharmacy, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Centre for Brain Research, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Department of Psychological Medicine, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
J Psychopharmacol. 2014 Aug;28(8):789-99. doi: 10.1177/0269881114538541. Epub 2014 Jun 11.
Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has been used to treat opiate dependence since the mid-1960s. Previous studies have investigated the effects of methadone on cognitive function however the findings have been inconsistent. Some report a complete absence of deficits while others report different types of cognitive impairment. Our research aimed to investigate the effects of MMT on cognitive function by comparing the performance of patients currently enrolled in MMT (n=32) with opiate-dependent subjects (n=17) and healthy control subjects (n=25) on a computerised neuropsychological test battery. Both the patients undertaking MMT and the opiate users showed less efficient interaction between visual searching and manually connecting digits and letters during the Switching of Attention Task than the healthy control subjects (F(2,64)=3.25, p=0.05), which indicates deficits in information processing. Nevertheless, the performance of the MMT group was similar to that of healthy control subjects in all other tasks, in contrast to the group of opiate users who performed poorly when compared to healthy control subjects during tests of attention (mean difference (MD)=2.8, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.9-4.7), p=0.001) and executive function (MD=5.9, 95% CI (1.3-10.5), p=0.007). These findings suggest that cognitive function in patients undertaking MMT is improved compared to those dependent on illicit opiates.
自20世纪60年代中期以来，美沙酮维持治疗（MMT）一直被用于治疗阿片类药物依赖。以往的研究调查了美沙酮对认知功能的影响，但其结果并不一致。一些研究报告称完全没有缺陷，而另一些研究则报告了不同类型的认知障碍。我们的研究旨在通过比较目前接受MMT治疗的患者（n = 32）、阿片类药物依赖者（n = 17）和健康对照者（n = 25）在一套计算机化神经心理测试中的表现，来研究MMT对认知功能的影响。在注意力转换任务中，接受MMT治疗的患者和阿片类药物使用者在视觉搜索与手动连接数字和字母之间的交互效率均低于健康对照者（F(2,64)=3.25，p = 0.05），这表明信息处理存在缺陷。然而，MMT组在所有其他任务中的表现与健康对照者相似，相比之下，阿片类药物使用者组在注意力测试（平均差（MD）=2.8，95%置信区间（CI）（0.9 - 4.7），p = 0.001）和执行功能测试（MD = 5.9，95% CI（1.3 - 10.5），p = 0.007）中与健康对照者相比表现较差。这些发现表明，与依赖非法阿片类药物的患者相比，接受MMT治疗的患者的认知功能有所改善。
