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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1975

Personality and behavior patterns of heroin-dependent American servicemen in Thailand.

The authors compared a groups of heroin-dependent American servicemen stationed in Thailand with a matched control groups of men not dependent on heroin. The data gathered regarding social history, attitudes, work record, previous drug use, personality, and intelligence show significant differences between the heroin-dependent men and the control group in four areas: intelligence, work record, number of years of schooling and number of drug used before using heroin. The data suggest that many of the heroin-dependent men had difficulties related to a distant or negative relationship to their fathers; however, in contrast to previous studies of heroin addicts, they do not confirm a relationship between heroin dependence and any particular personality pattern.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Deranged diurnal feeding pattern and altered brain serotonin turnover in heroin-dependent rats.

Rats rendered tolerant to and dependent on heroin by administering escalating dosages of heroin from 5 mg/kg-1 to 30 mg/kg-1 s,c, twice daily for 10 days exhibited disrupted diurnal feeding patterns. Daylight food intake was significantly increased, whereas night-time feeding was significantly decreased, as compared with the saline-control group. Growth rate evaluated on the basis of changes in daily body weights was considerably attenuated. The heroin-treated rats showed typical abstinence signs upon naloxone challenge 8 hr after the last heroin challenge. No significant changes were observed in the brain levels of tryptophan, serotonin and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid. The formation of newly synthesised 3H-serotonin from 3H-tryptophan was significantly reduced, as evidenced from the decreased specific activity of serotonin. The results obtained in this study indicate that whereas the perturbed diurnal feeding activity cannot be ascribed exclusively to altered central serotonergic mechanism, chronic heroin treatment appears to decrease the rate of serotonin via a negative feedback loop.

Animals↗
PubMed1977

Circadian rhythm of plasma corticosteroids in heroin dependent subjects.

The circadian rhythm of corticosteroid secretion was investigated in six heroin dependent subjects by measuring plasma corticosteroids at 09.00 hours and 24.00 hours. All results were within the normal range and it seems unlikely that chronic heroin dependence affects the hypothalamic control of corticosteroid secretion.

Adrenal Cortex Hormones↗
PubMed1978

Early clinical studies of levo-alpha acetylmethadol (LAAM): an opiate for use in the medical treatment of chronic heroin dependence.

Opiate maintenance with methadone has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment modality for many chronic heroin-dependent individuals. However, the many clinical and societal advantages of a longer-lasting medication prompted the development of LAAM, which could be administered three days a week rather than daily. Early Phase II clinical trials of LAAM in about 750 patients have been reviewed and have demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of this drug and confirmed its usefulness for treatment of this chronic disease.

Arousal↗
PubMed1976

An application of stepwise discriminant analysis to the characterization of military heroin dependents, illicit drug users, and psychiatric patients.

This application of stepwise discriminant analysis explores a way to structure skewed-sample interview data, discusses some implications of the results and the conceptual limitations of assumptions about deviancy, and suggests a focus for future studies of the complex phenomena of drug abuse. The methodology differs from previous reports in that it uses a constant probability level, letting the computational procedure determine the number of significant variables. It also provides a method of determining the "chance" level (the amount of correct classification when there are no differences between the groups) so that the observed correct classification values may be usefully interpreted.

Computers↗
PubMed1977

Alcoholism, heroin dependency, and methadone maintenance: alternatives and aids to conventional methods of therapy.

Alcohol is one of the drugs most frequently used by heroin addicts prior to inception of heroin addiction. It is therefore not surprising that alcohol also represents the drug most frequently abused by persons on methadone maintenance. This abuse not only results in the appearance of all the previously known complications secondary to excessive alcohol intake, but is also a major factor in preventing successful rehabilitation while on methadone therapy. Conventional means of therapy, through abstinence and/or Antabuse, have not met with success or a good degree of patient acceptance. A multimodal approach utilizing controlled drinking, abstinence, and Antabuse along with identification of cues triggering excessive drinking may serve to attract greater numbers of persons with dependency for narcotics and alcohol into the therapeutic setting.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed1979

Pupil responses to intravenous heroin (diamorphine) in dependent and non-dependent humans.

1. Intravenous heroin was administered to volunteers, in doses of 2.5 and 5 mg to non-dependent subjects and does of 1/6, 1/3 and 1/2 of their prescribed daily does of opiates to dependent subjects, and pupillary responses measured before and three times during the 2 h after injection. 2. Tolerance to the miotic effects of heroin in the dependent subjects was demonstrated--larger doses of heroin were needed to produce the same pupil response in dependent subjects than in non-dependent subjects and the duration of action was shorter in the former group. 3. The effect of concurrent oral methadone medication on pupil response to heroin was demonstrated. Subjects prescribed both methadone and heroin showed smaller control pupil diameters and a reduced dose effect to heroin than did subjects prescribed heroin alone.

Dose-Response Relationship, Drug↗
PubMed1979

The quantitative analysis of 1-alpha-acetylmethadol and its principal metabolites in biological specimens by gas chromatography-chemical ionization-multiple ion monitoring mass spectrometry.

1-alpha-acetylmethadol (LAAM) is a new drug under development for the treatment of heroin dependence. A new analytical method applicable to the accurate biodispositional study of the drug and its metabolities is described and critically discussed in this report. The procedure involves sample preparation and direct organic solvent extraction using eta-butyl chloride, amide derivatization by molecular rearrangement, and gas chromatography-chemical ionization mass spectrometry-selected ion monitoring, with methane as the carrier and ammonia as reagent gases. Deuterated (d3 stable isotopes of LAAM and its metabolites are used as internal standards. The method is free from qualitative interferences and has quantitative sensitivity to 5 ng/ml for 2.0 ml samples with 10-15% accuracy and precision in the range 5-100 ng/ml; and 2-5% at concentrations up to 750 ng/ml. Specimens of plasma, whole blood, urine, bile, brain, liver, and other visceral samples have been successfully analyzed, as well as in vitro preparations such as hepatic microsomes. By appropriate data processing, the method lends itself to routine analysis and high volume work; even manually the method is capable of at least 50 samples per week. A simplified procedure for the analysis of LAAM and its metabolites in urine only is also presented and discuet up and use the methods.

Bile↗
PubMed2025

Multi-Locus Pro-Dopaminergic Restoration of Reward Brain Circuitry in Reward Deficiency Rescinds Mono-Pharmaceutical Targeting.

Dopaminergic dysfunction in reward circuitry is well-documented as a contributor to addictive behaviors. Evidence indicates that changes in synchronous neural activity between brain regions mediating reward and cognitive functions may significantly contribute to substance-related disorders. In this commentary we highlight findings showing that the pro-dopaminergic nutraceutical (KB220) enhances functional connectivity between reward and cognitive brain areas in both animal and human studies. Animal studies demonstrate that KB220 activates important brain reward-related regions, including the nucleus accumbens, anterior cingulate gyrus, anterior thalamic nuclei, hippocampus, and prelimbic and infralimbic loci. Kb220 induced significant functional connectivity, enhanced neuroplasticity, and improved dopaminergic functionality within the brain reward circuitry with effects localized to these regions rather than broader distributed across the brain. In abstinent heroin-dependent individuals, acute KB220 administration significantly induced BOLD activation in caudate-accumbens dopaminergic pathways relative to placebo. Furthermore, data from 36 clinical trials and preclinical studies encompassing over 1,000 subjects, demonstrate that KB220 supports "dopamine homeostasis" across various reward deficiency behaviors. Clinical outcomes and quantitative electroencephalogy (qEEG) results underscore KB220's potential anti-craving/anti-relapse effects in addiction and other psychiatric disorders through direct or indirect dopaminergic modulation. Based on a review of the existing knowledge and further intensive investigation, we propose that instead of relying on mono-pharmaceutical approaches, the scientific community should endorse multi-loci dopaminergic restoration of reward brain circuitry as a fundamental paradigm for addressing mental illness.

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)↗
PubMed1978

Analgesia duration and physical dependence in mice after a single injection of three heroin salts and morphine sulphate in various vehicles.

Mice were given single s.c. injections of morphine sulphate (M.S.), heroin hydrochloride (H.HCl) and the sparingly-soluble diheroin pamoate (H.Pam) and 3,5-di-tert-butyl-2,6-dihydroxybenzoate (H.Bnz) in three vehicles, saline, peanut oil, or a slow-release vehicle (SRV) and tested for analgesia by both the tail-clip and hotplate techniques. Duration of analgesia as assessed by the tail-clip method was always longer than that by the hotplate when equivalent doses were used in any vehicle. The H.Pam and H.Bnz salts significantly prolonged the analgesia: the mean duration in mice injected with equivalent amounts of heroin base was 3.0 hr for the group receiving heroin HCl in saline and 7.8 hr after H.Bnz in slow-release vehicle. An inverse relationship was evident between the degree of dissociation of H from the three salts, at pH 7.3 and their durations of analgesia in vivo. This was statistically significant (p less than 0.01) at the higher dose level. All mice were challenged with naloxone hydrochloride (1 mg/kg) 24 hr after the injection of each narcotic agonist preparation. The jumping behaviour elicited by naloxone was not consistently related to dose, salt form, or vehicle employed for the injection of agonists, but from 12.5 too 54.2% of all the mice did jump at that time. The durations of analgesia observed and the intensity of the jumping response correlated significantly with the mean number of jumps per mouse after the naloxone challenge.

Analgesia↗
PubMed1976

The methadone clinic: function and philosophy.

Currently, methadone clinics are organised within two models, the metabolic and the psychotherapeutic. These models are seen to lack a completely successful opiate abuse therapy. A new model, the social psychiatric, is proposed to correct the deficiencies of these first two.

Community Mental Health Services↗