Cognitive and socio-cognitive functioning of chronic non-medical prescription opioid users

Impaired empathy and increased anger following social exclusion in non-intoxicated opioid users

“…The finding of lower emotional empathy in the nonintoxicated users partially replicates previous research suggesting impaired empathy among drug users (Ferrari et al 2014;Kroll et al 2018aKroll et al , 2018bMaurage et al 2011;Preller et al 2014) and opioid users specifically (Kroll et al 2018a;Stange et al 2017;Tomei et al 2017), but crucially highlighted that acutely intoxicated opioid users show intact emotional empathy compared to controls. This was contrary to our initial prediction that empathy would be lowest within the intoxicated user group.…”

“…The specific impairment in empathy for positive emotions was demonstrated previously in a similar study with opioid users (Kroll et al 2018a). This suggests a possible negative bias where relating to positive emotions is more difficult for opioid users not currently experiencing the acute effects of opioids.…”

“…Two pivotal aspects of empathy are 'emotional empathy', referring to the ability to vicariously feel the emotional state of others, and 'cognitive empathy', which refers to the ability to identify and understand the emotional state of others (sometimes referred to as 'theory of mind') ( Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright 2004;Blair 2005). Impairments in emotional empathy have been observed in drug users generally (Ferrari et al 2014), alcohol users (Maurage et al 2011) and stimulant users (Kroll et al 2018a(Kroll et al , 2018bPreller et al 2014). Two studies with chronic opioid users have similarly reported impairments in emotional empathy using a subjective questionnaire among methadoneand diacetylmorphine-maintained individuals (Stange et al 2017;Tomei et al 2017) but a further study failed to replicate these findings (Kroll et al 2018a).…”

“…Impairments in emotional empathy have been observed in drug users generally (Ferrari et al 2014), alcohol users (Maurage et al 2011) and stimulant users (Kroll et al 2018a(Kroll et al , 2018bPreller et al 2014). Two studies with chronic opioid users have similarly reported impairments in emotional empathy using a subjective questionnaire among methadoneand diacetylmorphine-maintained individuals (Stange et al 2017;Tomei et al 2017) but a further study failed to replicate these findings (Kroll et al 2018a). The ability to empathise can be affected by situational factors including psychosocial stress, affective state, and socioeconomic status (Kanske et al 2017), where acute opioid intoxication state may also be important to understand impairments in empathy within the context of wider social stress.…”

Social and Non-Social Cognitive Enhancement in Cocaine Users—A Closer Look on Enhancement Motives for Cocaine Consumption

“…In order to assess cognitive performance participants completed the Rapid Visual Information Processing, Spatial Working Memory, and Paired Associates Learning tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB 1 ) as well as the German version of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (39) and the Letter Number Sequencing Test (40). Following previous publications from our group investigating cognition in substance users (2,15,41,42), 13 predefined cognitive test parameters were incorporated into the four cognitive domains: attention, working memory, declarative memory, and executive functions [for details see (15,41)] after z-transforming them on the means and standard deviations of the control group. These four domains were further compiled into a global cognitive index (GCI).…”