Su Bobo, Yang Ling, Wang Grace Y, Wang Sha, Li Shaomei, Cao Hua, Zhang Yan
a School of Psychology , Northwest Normal University , Lanzhou , PR China.
b Department of Psychology , Auckland University of Technology , Auckland , New Zealand.
Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 2017 Nov;43(6):664-670. doi: 10.1080/00952990.2017.1283695. Epub 2017 Feb 17.
Chronic heroin use can cause a deficit of inhibitory function, leading to a loss of control over drug use. Exposure to drug-related cues is considered as one of the contributing factors. However, it is unclear whether there are dynamic changes on the effect of drug-related cues on response inhibition following prolonged abstinence.
The present study investigated the effect of drug-related cues on response inhibition in heroin abstainers at different abstinent phases.
26 shorter-term (2-6 months) and 26 longer-term (19-24 months) male heroin abstainers performed on a modified two-choice Oddball task, which included two conditions: in the cued condition, neutral pictures served as the background of standard stimuli (yellow frame) and heroin-related pictures served as the background of deviant stimuli (blue frame), reversed in the controlled conditions.
Compared to longer-term abstainers, mean reaction time (RT) for drug deviants in shorter-term abstainers was significantly longer. Shorter-term abstainers also showed markedly slower response to neutral deviants relative to drug deviants, but this tendency was not observed in longer-term abstainers. Nevertheless, both groups had similar RT for standard stimuli regardless of their paired background pictures.
Effect of drug-related cues on response inhibition remains at the early stage of abstinence; however, this effect may be reduced following a longer period of drug abstinence. Our findings highlight the importance of assessing and improving the ability of inhibiting drug-related cue reactivity during treatment.
长期使用海洛因会导致抑制功能缺陷，从而使人失去对药物使用的控制。接触与毒品相关的线索被认为是促成因素之一。然而，长期 abstinence 后，与毒品相关的线索对反应抑制的影响是否存在动态变化尚不清楚。
本研究调查了在不同 abstinent 阶段，与毒品相关的线索对海洛因 abstainers 反应抑制的影响。
26 名短期（2 - 6 个月）和 26 名长期（19 - 24 个月）男性海洛因 abstainers 进行了一项改良的二选一 Oddball 任务，该任务包括两种条件：在提示条件下，中性图片作为标准刺激（黄色框架）的背景，与海洛因相关的图片作为偏差刺激（蓝色框架）的背景，在对照条件下则相反。
与长期 abstainers 相比，短期 abstainers 对毒品偏差刺激的平均反应时间（RT）明显更长。短期 abstainers 对中性偏差刺激的反应也明显慢于对毒品偏差刺激的反应，但在长期 abstainers 中未观察到这种趋势。然而，无论其配对的背景图片如何，两组对标准刺激的 RT 相似。
与毒品相关的线索对反应抑制的影响在 abstinence 的早期阶段仍然存在；然而，经过较长时间的戒毒后，这种影响可能会降低。我们的研究结果强调了在治疗过程中评估和提高抑制与毒品相关线索反应性能力的重要性。
