School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2021 Apr 1;221:108630. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108630. Epub 2021 Feb 16.
Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the top three regions with the highest rates of opioid-related premature mortality. Nyaope is the street name for what is believed to be a drug cocktail in South Africa although recent research suggests that it is predominantly heroin. Nyaope powder is most commonly smoked together with cannabis, a drug-use pattern unique to the region. Due to the increasing burden of this drug in low-income communities and the absence of human structural neuroimaging data of combination heroin and cannabis use disorder, we initiated an important cohort study in order to identify neuroanatomical sequelae. Twenty-eight male nyaope users and thirty healthy, matched controls were recruited from drug rehabilitation centers and the community, respectively. T1-weighted MRI images were obtained using a 3 T General Electric Discovery and cortical thickness was examined and compared. Nyaope users displayed extensive grey matter atrophy in the right hemispheric medial orbitofrontal, rostral middle frontal, superior temporal, superior frontal, and supramarginal gyri (two-sided t-test, p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). Our findings indicate cortical abnormality in nyaope users in regions involved in impulse control, decision making, social- and self-perception, and working memory. Importantly, affected brain regions show large overlap with the pattern of cortical abnormalities shown in heroin use disorder.
撒哈拉以南非洲是与阿片类药物相关的过早死亡率最高的三个地区之一。Nyaope 是南非一种被认为是药物混合物的俗称，尽管最近的研究表明它主要是海洛因。Nyaope 粉末最常与大麻一起吸食，这是该地区特有的一种吸毒模式。由于这种药物在低收入社区的负担不断增加，以及缺乏关于组合使用海洛因和大麻的人类结构神经影像学数据，我们启动了一项重要的队列研究，以确定神经解剖学后果。从戒毒中心和社区分别招募了 28 名男性 nyaope 使用者和 30 名健康、匹配的对照者。使用 3 T 通用电气 Discovery 获得 T1 加权 MRI 图像，并检查和比较皮质厚度。Nyaope 使用者在右侧半球的内侧眶额、额前中部、颞上回、额上回和缘上回显示出广泛的灰质萎缩（双侧 t 检验，p<0.05，经多重比较校正）。我们的研究结果表明，在冲动控制、决策、社会和自我感知以及工作记忆等区域，Nyaope 使用者存在皮质异常。重要的是，受影响的大脑区域与海洛因使用障碍中显示的皮质异常模式有很大的重叠。
