gabapentin seems to be a safe and well tolerated medication for treating heroine dependence. this study examined the efficacy of gabapentin for relieving withdrawal-related pain due to heroin use.sixty men were recruited from an inpatient psychiatric ward of fatemieh hospital in semnan and randomized to receive either placebo (n = 30) or gabapentin (1800 mg/day) (n = 30) for 7 days. subjective ...

Several medications are approved for treatment of opiate abuse, but determinants of their clinical effectiveness are not completely understood. States of opiate dependence or withdrawal may constitute one important set of determinants. To test this hypothesis, the effects of naloxone, buprenorphine, and methadone were assessed on choice between heroin and food in nondependent rhesus monkeys and...

Through epidemiological method, prevalence of drug dependence in the four villages of Panjgur is estimated to be 3.37% of the population.. Cannabis was found to be abused by 1.13%, opium 0.5% and heroin 0.64%. The difference between the estimates of heroin abuse made earlier through information from patients and the current survey is more than five times. It is suggested that currently used est...

The brain activity induced by heroin-related cues may play a role in the maintenance of heroin dependence. Whether the reinforcement or processing biases construct an everlasting feature of heroin addiction remains to be resolved. We used an event-related fMRI paradigm to measure brain activation in response to heroin cue-related pictures versus neutral pictures as the control condition in hero...

Correspondence: Shailendra Kapoor 2300 E Cary Street, Richmond, VA 23223, USA Email [email protected] I read with great interest the article by Cosci et al in a recent issue of your journal. The article provides for highly interesting reading and is very thought-provoking. Interestingly, the past few years have seen the emergence of extensive data that establish a close association bet...

Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated both structural and functional damages in heroin-dependent individuals. However, few studies investigated gray matter deficits and abnormal resting-state networks together in heroin-dependent individuals. In the present study, voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to identify brain regions with gray matter density reduction. Resting-state fMRI co...

Heroin use causes considerable harm to individual users including dependence, fatal and nonfatal overdose, mental health problems, and blood borne virus transmission. It also adversely affects the community through drug dealing, property crime and reduced public amenity. During the mid to late 1990s in Australia the prevalence of heroin use increased as reflected in steeply rising overdose deat...

Opioids have been the mainstay for pain relief and palliation over a long period of time. They are commonly abused by drug addicts and such dependence usually imparts severe physiologic effects on multiple organ systems. The negative impact of opioids on the endocrine system is poorly understood and often underestimated. We describe a patient who developed severe suppression of the hypothalamic...

In a group of 1066 heroin addicts, who were seeking treatment for opioid agonist treatment, we looked for differences in historical, demographic, and clinical characteristics, between patients with different levels of awareness of illness (insight). The results showed that, in the cohort studied, a majority of subjects lacked insight into their heroin-use behavior. Compared with the impaired-in...

Given the difficulty of achieving sustained recovery, pharmacotherapy of opioid and cocaine addiction is more effective when combined with behavioral and psychosocial approaches. Effective pharmacotherapies for opioid dependence and withdrawal include methadone, L-alpha acetylmethadol (LAAM), naltrexone, buprenorphine, and clonidine. Treatment of cocaine addiction includes anti-craving agents, ...