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Episodic foresight deficits in long-term opiate users

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Abstract

Rationale

There is considerable literature showing that opiate use is associated with a range of neurocognitive deficits, including deficits in executive control and episodic memory. However, no study to date has assessed whether these neurocognitive difficulties extend to the ability to mentally time travel into one’s personal future. This is a surprising omission given that executive control and episodic memory are considered to be critical for episodic foresight. In addition, opiate-related brain changes have been identified in the neural regions that underlie the capacity for episodic foresight.

Objective

In the present study, we assessed how episodic foresight is affected in the context of chronic opiate use, as well as the degree to which any deficits are related to difficulties with executive control and episodic memory.

Methods and Results

Forty-eight long-term heroin users enrolled in an opiate substitution program and 48 controls were tested. The results showed that, relative to controls, the clinical group exhibited significant impairment in episodic foresight but not episodic memory (as indexed by an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview). For executive function, the clinical group was impaired on only one of three measures (Inhibition).

Conclusions

These data provide important preliminary evidence that episodic foresight might be particularly susceptible to the neurocognitive effects of opiate use, as the difficulties identified were not secondary to more general executive control or episodic memory impairment. Because a number of widely used relapse prevention protocols require the ability to mentally project into the future, these data have potentially important practical implications in relation to the treatment of substance dependence disorders.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of our participants who generously volunteered their time to participate in our project.

We acknowledge the assistance of Melbourne pharmacies and health services for the distribution of recruitment fliers. More specifically, Innerspace (North Yarra Community Health), Melbourne Central Pharmacy, Priceline Pharmacies (Melbourne, Richmond, and Yarraville), Pickford Pharmacy, David Nolte Guardian Pharmacy, Newton & Leung Pharmacy, and the Living Room (Youth Projects).

We also acknowledge the help of Kathryn Biernacki, Rachel Braithwaite, and Candice Bowers in the recruitment and testing of participants, as well as Sandra Raponi-Saunders, Jake Linardon, and Claire Dunning in the transcribing and scoring of participant interviews.

Finally, we would like to thank Donna Addis for generously sharing the materials and her advice on conducting and scoring of the adapted Autobiographical Interview (AI).

Funding and disclosure

This research was supported by a discovery research grant from the Australian Research Council.

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Correspondence to Kimberly Mercuri.

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Mercuri, K., Terrett, G., Henry, J.D. et al. Episodic foresight deficits in long-term opiate users. Psychopharmacology 232, 1337–1345 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3772-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3772-2

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