Chronic Methamphetamine Abuse and Brain Deficits Revealed by Neuroimaging

Abstract

Amphetamines (mainly MA and amphetamine) are the second most prevalent psychoactive substances. In recent years, the abuse and dependence of MA has also became increasingly serious in China. The abuse and dependence of MA has became a global public health problem, which not only has a serious social impact but also occupies a significant amount of medical resources. Despite treating MA out of order, the mortality and relapse rate remains very high. Chronic abuse of MA can cause change in regional cerebral blood flow, glucose metabolism, certain biochemical substances, and even local brain structures. This paper presents a brief overview of the imaging findings of brain anatomical and functional change caused by the abuse and dependence of MA, which will help us understand the mechanism of MA dependence better. By searching a large number of the latest literatures, the paper summarizes the brain anatomical and functional change caused by chronic MA abuse by SPECT-CT, PET-CT, MRI, fMRI and proton MRS. These modern neuroimaging techniques allow us to observe change in regional cerebral blood flow and glucose metabolism caused by the abuse and dependence of MA under physiological conditions, to investigate the involvement brain regions and nucleus and to detect some certain neurochemicals change by proton MRS. The combination of neuroimaging techniques allow us monitor the brain anatomical structure change and molecular level change, and many of these neural abnormalities were found to be linked with certain addiction related phenotypes, such as cognitive inflexibility, maladaptive decision-making and poor self-control. Those addiction-related phenotypes may influence treatment response. Those brain anatomical and functional change may represent novel therapeutic targets, and it will play an important role in clinicians' treatment decisions. The development of the advanced neuroimaging technology will provide a good opportunity for studing and further clarifing the mechanism of MA dependence.

Keywords

• methamphetamine cerebral blood flow perfusion cerebral glucose metabolism brain structure neurometabolites