In the current experiment, we used the saccadometric test to study the effect of a single therapeutic dose of methadone on the integrity of cortico-subcortical brain functioning. In this prospective study, we used the Saccadometer System (Advanced Clinical Instrumentation, Cambridge, UK). The saccadometric test was performed before and 1.5 hours after methadone dosing. We analyzed the following...

Methadone maintenance has been the treatment of choice for heroin addiction for several years. The prenatal and early neonatal effects have been described in several reports (Kandall et al. 1979; Finnegan 1983). However, there have been few reports on the longterm effects of methadone maintenance during pregnancy on the child’s somatic and neurobehavioral development. Some investigators have de...

It has been proposed that genetic factors account for 30%–50% of the risk for cocaine and heroin addiction. The present study was aimed to find out the impact of μ-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) rs1799971 A > G and rs9479757 polymorphisms on heroin dependence in a sample of southeast Iranian population. This case-control study was done on 123 heroin addicts and 140 non-addicts Iranian male. Genom...

BACKGROUND Switzerland has been criticised for its liberal drug policy, which could attract new users and lengthen periods of heroin addiction. We sought to estimate incidence trends and prevalence of problem heroin use in Switzerland. METHODS We obtained information about first year of regular heroin use from the case register of substitution treatments in the canton of Zurich for 7256 patie...

Our study examined the impact of heroin on frontal executive functioning in three cognitive domains, namely attention, impulse control, and mental flexibility and abstract reasoning. It was hypothesized that heroin addiction would lead to deficits in these three cognitive domains. Fifty-five participants, 30 heroin addicts, and 25 normal controls were invited to participate in this study. Each ...

Whilst unsupervised injectable methadone and diamorphine treatment has been part of the British treatment system for decades, the numbers receiving injectable opioid treatment (IOT) has been steadily diminishing in recent years. In contrast, there has been a recent expansion of supervised injectable diamorphine programs under trial conditions in a number of European and North American cities, a...

Dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) and serotonin transporter (SERT) gene polymorphisms were studied, as possible genetic risk factors for substance dependence. The case-control study involved a large cohort (n = 362) of healthy Caucasian population, and an initial sample of 73 substance dependent patients (including a subgroup of 53 heroin dependents). Improved methods were applied for genotype detect...

CONTEXT Dopamine receptor-mediated pathways play critical roles in the mechanism of addiction. However, associations of the D(2) dopamine receptor gene (DRD2) with substance abuse are controversial. OBJECTIVE To determine whether susceptibility sites resided at DRD2. DESIGN Haplotype-based case-control analysis of 2 distinct populations using 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with h...

BACKGROUND There are limited data on reasons for hospital admission among patients dependent on substances other than alcohol. We compared primary discharge diagnoses for heroin- or cocaine-dependent patients to non-dependent patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS We evaluated a cohort of patients admitted to a general medicine service at a public teaching hospital during July 2005-June 2008. Through...

GABRB3 encoding the β3 subunit of GABAA receptor has been implicated in multiple neuropsychiatric disorders, including substance abuse. Previous studies reported that SNPs at the 5' regulatory region of GABRB3 could regulate GABRB3 gene expression and associated with childhood absence epilepsy (CAE). The study aimed to investigate whether SNPs at the 5' regulatory region of GABRB3 were associat...