A prior study found that one ketamine-assisted psychotherapy session was significantly more effective than active placebo in promoting abstinence (Krupitsky et al. 2002). In this study of the efficacy of single versus repeated sessions of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in promoting abstinence in people with heroin dependence, 59 detoxified inpatients with heroin dependence received a ketamine-...

Aims of the present investigation were: (i) to assess the prevalence of current smokers and relative smoking status among a large number of heroin addicts attending opioid-substitution therapy prevalence; (ii) to evaluate the relationship between the type (methadone, buprenorphine) and dosage of opioid substitution therapy and nicotine dependence. Three hundred and five (305) heroin addicts und...

In teaching medical students and residents about substance dependence, I often use the phrase " the addiction takes on a life of its own. " This intuitive expression begins to introduce how the severely addicted person becomes merely the " means " for the substance, how the person is displaced within his own body, how there becomes a fundamental separation within the addicted person who himself...

Abstract Background:In general, parental substance abuse is associated with children's emotional and behavioral problems. This study only investigated the internalizing problems (depression, anxiety and physical complains) in children of opioid or heroin-dependent parents in comparison with non-opioid dependent parents in order to determine the effects of drug dependency after exclu...

As personality may predispose, precipitate or perpetuate substance abuse and/or dependence, and as it is considered to remain stable across the years in a given subject, potential links with the drug of choice may help screen future patients before drug consumption. The present study compared three groups: 42 patients with heroin dependence (mean age: 31.2; standard deviation (SD): 5.5; 10 fema...

background: high prevalence of risky behaviors in alcohol dependents have been shown in several studies, but correlation between alcohol abuse and risky behaviors and relapse in patients with opiate dependence has been less investigated. this study aimed to determine the effect of alcohol abuse in rate of risk-taking behaviors in opiate dependents patients treated on maintenance program in nort...

Heroin dependence is a debilitating psychiatric disorder with a complex inheritance mechanism. Genetic polymorphisms in functional regions of the glutamate receptor, N-methyl D-aspartate 2A (GRIN2A) gene, which encodes the 2A subunit of the N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, may modulate the risk of heroin addiction. We investigated the potential association between 8 single nucleotide polym...

BACKGROUND Currently approved medications for opioid addiction have shown clinical efficacy, but undesired side effects, dependence induced by the medications themselves, and low treatment compliance necessitate the need for novel therapies. METHODS A novel morphine-keyhole limpet hemocyanin conjugate vaccine was synthesized with 6-glutarylmorphine as the hapten and a lengthened linker of 6 c...