BACKGROUND Frequent methamphetamine use among recently HIV infected individuals is associated with transmitted drug resistance (TDR) to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI); however, the reversion time of TDR to drug susceptible HIV may exceed 3 years. We assessed whether recreational substance use is associated with detectable TDR among individuals newly diagnosed with HIV i...

Behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants manifests as an increased locomotor response with repeated administration. Dopamine systems are accepted to play a fundamental role in sensitization, but the role of specific dopamine receptor subtypes has not been completely defined. This study used the combination of dopamine D2 receptor-deficient mice and a D1-like antagonist to examine dopamine D...

Methamphetamine abuse in young adults has long-term deleterious effects on brain function that are associated with damage to monoaminergic neurons. Administration of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) protects dopamine neurons from the toxic effects of methamphetamine in animal models. Therefore, we hypothesized that a partial GDNF gene deletion would increase the susceptibility...

Bupropion reduces the subjective effects and cue-induced craving for methamphetamine in humans. Given these effects of bupropion on methamphetamine in humans and its widespread clinical use, a preclinical model of drug-taking was used to determine if pretreatment with bupropion would alter the acquisition of methamphetamine self-administration. During acquisition, rats were given saline or bupr...

BACKGROUND Chronic methamphetamine abuse can lead to multiple health hazards. In particular, the substance is associated with devastating effects on oral health including symptoms such as rampant caries, gingiva inflammation, and xerostomia, whereby the term "Meth Mouth" occurs in the current literature. However, "Meth Mouth" pathology is primarily described on the basis of individual cases or ...

BACKGROUND A significant number of chronic pain patients may use marijuana. Physicians treating those patients can benefit by knowing whether their patients using marijuana are at higher risk for using other illicit drugs such as cocaine and/or methamphetamine. OBJECTIVE Our objective was to determine whether marijuana-using chronic pain patients have a higher incidence of cocaine and/or meth...

BACKGROUND This prospective study investigated the association between life-long methamphetamine and other drug use and high school non-attendance, in a sample of high school students in Cape Town, South Africa. METHODS A random sample of 1535 high school students completed a baseline questionnaire in 2006, and were asked to complete a follow-up questionnaire 12 months later. The questionnair...

AACP.com Annals of Clinical Psychiatry | Vol. 25 No. 2 | May 2013 153 Cocaine abuse epidemics come and go. Some of us remember the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s that peaked in 1985 and produced an estimated 2.5 million lifetime stimulant abusers (p 3). Some may assume cocaine abuse was a big problem but hopefully isn’t big anymore. Unfortunately, it still is, and we are facing yet another epide...

Previous studies demonstrated that tolerance to the long-term neurotoxic effects of methamphetamine on dopamine neurons could be induced by pretreating with multiple injections of escalating doses of methamphetamine. The mechanism(s) underlying this tolerance phenomenon is unknown. Some recent studies suggested that aberrant vesicular monoamine transporter-2 (VMAT-2) and dopamine transporter fu...