Consumer Attitudes About Opioid Addiction Treatment: A Focus Group Study in New York City.
Consumer attitudes about opioid addiction treatment: A focus group study in New York City.
J Opioid Manag. 2013 March-April; 9(2): 111-119
Sohler NL, Weiss L, Egan JE, López CM, Favaro J, Cordero R, Cunningham CO
Objective: To develop effective programs for people who are opioid dependent and to impact the opioid epidemic in New York City, it is crucial to monitor attitudes about opioid addiction treatments among opioid users who have experienced barriers to engagement and retention in addiction treatment. Design: The authors conducted a qualitative study using focus groups. Methods: Six focus groups in three needle exchanges in New York City were audio recorded, transcribed, and systematically coded. The authors report on the main themes related to the study objectives. Participants: Participants of each needle exchange who were opioid dependent and had some knowledge of both methadone and buprenorphine were eligible. Results: There were four main findings. Participants felt the following: 1) buprenorphine is an appropriate option for those heroin users who are motivated to stop using, 2) they have less control over their addiction treatment with methadone than they would have with buprenorphine, 3) buprenorphine treatment is not accessible to many New York City residents who would benefit from this treatment, and 4) lack of access to buprenorphine treatment is a cause of treatment-related diversion. Conclusions: Both methadone maintenance and buprenorphine treatment opportunities are necessary to address the diverse treatment needs of opioid-dependent people in New York City. However, the current medical model of buprenorphine treatment may be too restrictive for some opioid-dependent people and may be contributing to the use of illicit buprenorphine. New models to deliver buprenorphine treatment may address these problems. HubMed – addiction
Associations between public health indicators and injecting prescription opioids by prescription opioid abusers in substance abuse treatment.
J Opioid Manag. 2013 January-February; 9(1): 5-17
Black RA, Trudeau KJ, Cassidy TA, Budman SH, Butler SF
Objective: To determine what, if any, public health and societal impacts are associated specifically with injection of prescription opioids. Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Setting: Five hundred forty treatment facilities in 35 states across the United States performing Addiction Severity Index-Multimedia Version (ASI-MV) assessments. Participants: Adult patients (29,459) who reported past 30-day abuse of any prescription opioid on the ASI-MV assessment between January 2007 and January 2011. Main outcome measures: The public health indicators selected for this study were liver disease, HIV/AIDS status, recent visit to an emergency room, treatment for pain, treatment for overdosing, homelessness, residence with alcohol/substance abuser, and unemployment. Results: Prescription opioid injection was significantly associated with health problems, psychosocial problems, and utilization of medical services. Conclusions: This study demonstrates an approach to measure the potential impact of injecting prescription opioids on public health indicators. Findings indicate a positive association between injection of prescription opioids and public health indicators suggesting a need for prescription opioid formulations that may inhibit injection of these medications. HubMed – addiction
Tandospirone Suppresses Impulsive Action by Possible Blockade of the 5-HT1A Receptor.
J Pharmacol Sci. 2013 May 24;
Ohmura Y, Kumamoto H, Tsutsui-Kimura I, Minami M, Izumi T, Yoshida T, Yoshioka M
Higher impulsivity is observed in several psychiatric disorders and could be a risk factor for drug addiction, criminal involvement, and suicide. Although the involvement of the 5-HT1A receptor in impulsive behavior has been indicated, the effects of clinically relevant drugs have been rarely tested. In the present study, we examined whether (3aR,4S,7R,7aS)-rel-hexahydro-2-[4-[4-(2-pyrimidinyl)-1-piperazinyl]butyl]-4,7-methano-1H-isoindole-1,3(2H)-dione hydrochloride (tandospirone), an anxiolytic and a partial agonist of the 5-HT1A receptor, could affect impulsive action in the 3-choice serial reaction time task. Rats were acutely administered tandospirone (0, 0.1, and 1 mg/kg, i.p.). Tandospirone decreased the number of premature responses, an index of impulsive action, in a dose-dependent manner. N-[2-[4-(2-Methoxyphenyl)-1-piperazinyl]ethyl]-N-2-pyridinylcyclohexanecarboxamide maleate salt (WAY100635; 0.3 mg/kg, s.c.), a 5-HT1A receptor antagonist, did not reverse the suppressing effects of tandospirone on impulsive action. Moreover, a higher dose of WAY100635 (1 mg/kg, s.c.) suppressed impulsive action without tandospirone. Thus the effects of tandospirone on impulsivity might be due to the antagonistic action. Tandospirone could be a therapeutic candidate for impulsivity-related disorders. HubMed – addiction
Cocaine Addiction Related Reproducible Brain Regions of Abnormal Default-Mode Network Functional Connectivity: A Group ICA Study with Different Model Orders.
Neurosci Lett. 2013 May 21;
Ding X, Lee SW
Model order selection in group independent component analysis (ICA) has a significant effect on the obtained components. This study investigated the reproducible brain regions of abnormal default-mode network (DMN) functional connectivity related with cocaine addiction through different model order settings in group ICA. Resting-state fMRI data from 24 cocaine addicts and 24 healthy controls were temporally concatenated and processed by group ICA using model orders of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50, respectively. For each model order, the group ICA approach was repeated 100 times using the ICASSO toolbox and after clustering the obtained components, centrotype-based anterior and posterior DMN components were selected for further analysis. Individual DMN components were obtained through back-reconstruction and converted to z-score maps. A whole brain mixed effects factorial ANOVA was performed to explore the differences in resting-state DMN functional connectivity between cocaine addicts and healthy controls. The hippocampus, which showed decreased functional connectivity in cocaine addicts for all the tested model orders, might be considered as a reproducible abnormal region in DMN associated with cocaine addiction. This finding suggests that using group ICA to examine the functional connectivity of the hippocampus in the resting-state DMN may provide an additional insight potentially relevant for cocaine-related diagnoses and treatments. HubMed – addiction