College-aged drug users 'have impaired brain activity' linked to anticipation

[edgarshade]

Medical News Today

Sunday 30 March 2014 - 12am PST

With reader comments

New research from the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine has uncovered impaired neuronal activity in the brains of college-aged students who occasionally use stimulant drugs, such as amphetamines, cocaine and certain prescription drugs. The research team, led by Katia Harlé, PhD, recently published their findings in the Journal of Neuroscience. For their study, the investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain activity of 213 college students aged 18-24 years. Of these, 158 were occasional users of stimulant drugs, meaning they had taken stimulants an average of 12 to 15 times. The remaining 47 participants had never taken stimulants. During fMRI, participants were required to take part in a test. They were shown either an X or an O on a screen and asked to press a left button when an X appeared, and a right button when an O appeared. They were instructed to press each button as quickly as possible. In some tests, participants heard a tone, and this required them to avoid pressing either button. The investigators measured each subject's reaction times and errors during 288 tests.

The investigators say that these findings suggest that college-aged occasional stimulant users with these brain impairments may be more prone to drug addiction later in life. But in a positive sense, the findings show that it may be possible to use brain activity patterns to predict whether youths are at risk of drug addiction before they fall into such behaviors.

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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/274779.php

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Pointless tests like this prove nothing.

Real world application : nil

 

[Cambo]

People who use drugs are more likely to use drugs in later life. Groundbreaking.

 

[Clocktower]

Typical media mangling. I read the paper (In fact I've met one of the authors) and it's a very interesting piece of neuroscience about how brain activity in certain regions differs between stimulant users and non-users during a certain task. The one criticism I have of it is that the authors don't seem to have controlled for caffeine use in their test subjects at all, though they considered alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and cocaine.

The authors concluded that the stimulant users had weaker activation in certain areas, but I don't remember reading anything about addiction later in life. Not to mention the grossly sensationalized title.

 

[neversickanymore]

In other news the brain is placid compared to what allot of the neuroscientists think and looking at many of these variances as permanent changes is foolish.

 

[_DankOpiAmp_]

They are trying less and less with there attempts to trick dumb people into believing propaganda lies with the guise of science. Such a pathetically limited study doesn't tell us shit. They should be publicly raped for coming to these conclusions based on button pressing.

 

[Roger&Me]

They should be publicly raped for coming to these conclusions based on button pressing.

lolwat

did you even read the actual study? what specific problems do you have with their methodology, and how would you suggest they correct those problems?

 

[theWhiteLarryBird]

"Our study is telling us, it's not 'this is your brain on drugs,' it's 'this is the brain that does drugs.'"

Yeah public rape gets my vote.

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

My problem is that not all drug users use stimulants. I really want to see a class action lawsuit against a large media firm/publisher for misrepresentation of the facts.

They imply as if every college aged person who has used drugs has 'impaired brain activity'. Fuck them, that is defamation.

The study itself seems legit. Every thing has to start somewhere. What I would like to see is how the people who occasionally use stimulants would react when given stimulants before the test in comparison to occasional stimulant users receiving a placebo, a group of non-users also given a stimulant, and a group of non-users given a placebo. I'm not a stimulant fan myself, but they seem to really help some people, make some people sick, and destroy others. They are a huge class of drugs, and have very different effects depending on the substance and person using it.

 

[_DankOpiAmp_]

lolwat

did you even read the actual study? what specific problems do you have with their methodology, and how would you suggest they correct those problems?

Yes. The entire premiss is bullshit. Their usage levels were minimal and so was the sample size. They did not differentiate between cause and effect either. They fantastically extrapolate from button-pressing time with bullshit brain scans we don't even have the science to understand yet. Macro-scans of a large (not microscopic) area of the brain are largely meaningless. That whole area could have millions of functions and they are only measuring activity in a crude way across the board.

About the above^ post. Yeah what about those who are taking amps by prescription every day? Combine that with the fact that more intelligent people are more likely to use drugs and you need spread-eagle bondage apparatuses in town square.

 

[opi8]

I think the anticipation of a drug is very powerful.

I know when I hear from certain people about something being around when I'm sick, I need to have a shit. I also know my body starts reacting, yearning and time slows. This is all just from the anticipation because it doesn't happen if nothing is happening, and I'm talking about opiates here not stims.

It's worth noting too, that recently when I picked up some meth and was about to get it into me, I was shaking for no real reason, except maybe the anticipation of some expected rush that I hadn't felt in a little while. Full on shaking that made it hard to administer the drugs, that stopped once I'd got them into me.

I think anticipation should be studied further because it certainly affects me to a large extent.

I also know that, after reading the link, this isn't really relevant to the study. But I thought it worth mentioning.

 

[theWhiteLarryBird]

I agree. The anticipation, while not particularly satisfying or rewarding, is very nice, and is probly something most drug users are accustomed to, as it is a pivotal part of the overall addict experience.