Neuroelectrophysiological approaches in heroin addiction research: A review of literatures

Abstract

Neuroelectrophysiological properties have been used in human heroin addiction studies. These studies vary in their approach, experimental conditions, paradigms, and outcomes. However, it is essential to integrate previous findings and experimental methods for a better demonstration of current issues and challenges in designing such studies. This Review examines methodologies and experimental conditions of neuroelectrophysiological research among heroin addicts during withdrawal, abstinence, and methadone maintenance treatment and presents the findings. The results show decrements in attentional processing and dysfunctions in brain response inhibition as well as brain activity abnormalities induced by chronic heroin abuse. Chronic heroin addiction causes increased β and α2 power activity, latency of P300 and P600, and diminished P300 and P600 amplitude. Findings confirm that electroencephalography (EEG) band power and coherence are associated with craving indices and heroin abuse history. First symptoms of withdrawal can be seen in high-frequency EEG bands, and the severity of these symptoms is associated with brain functional connectivity. EEG spectral changes and event-related potential (ERP) properties have been shown to be associated with abstinence length and tend to normalize within 3-6 months of abstinence. From the conflicting criteria and confounding effects in neuroelectrophysiological studies, the authors suggest a comprehensive longitudinal study with a multimethod approach for monitoring EEG and ERP attributes of heroin addicts from early stages of withdrawal until long-term abstinence to control the confounding effects, such as nicotine abuse and other comorbid and premorbid conditions.

Effective brain network analysis with resting-state EEG data: a comparison between heroin abstinent and non-addicted subjects

“…heroin abuse led to abnormal functional brain organization [2][3][4]. As functional neuroimaging technologies develop, it is possible to reveal the brain functional alternations caused by heroin addiction.…”

“…As functional neuroimaging technologies develop, it is possible to reveal the brain functional alternations caused by heroin addiction. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and EEG recordings have been widely applied to study Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia [5], as well as the abnormalities of brain functional system (BFS) induced by chronic heroin abuse [2,6]. fMRI data can provide accurate imaging of abnormal regions induced by heroin addiction.…”

Brain Mapping of drug addiction in witdrawal condition based P300 Signals

“…The BCI based EEG equipment is one of the noninvasive techniques and it is not only used by patients but also by healthy users with various applications [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].Over the last few decades, EEG activities have been widely used to study the brain cognitive dysfunction and neurobiological alterations among drug addicts [8]. In addition to EEG spectral analysis to examine the effects of drug abuser on brain functionality (Davydov and Polunina, 2004;Franken et al, 2004;Polunina and Davydov, 2006;Fingelkurts et al, 2009) [9][10][11][12], brain event-related potential (ERP) components were evaluated as a reliable approach to study cognitive abilities related to information processing, selective attention, and memory updating of addicts [8]. Among various ERP components, measuring the amplitude and latency of mismatch negativity, P300, and P600 components in standard condition has attracted special attention in ERP evaluation among addicts [2,13,14].…”

“…Additionally, examining cognitive responses to drug-related stimuli showed promising results in providing better understanding of brain functional alterations during withdrawal and abstinence periods associated with addiction traits such as craving and anhedonia [15][16]. For this purpose, various types of ERP paradigms have been designed to probe subjects' evoked cognitive responses using deviant, affective, and drug-related stimuli [8]. P300 is associated with selective attention, memory renewal, motivation, stimulus significance, activation of inhibitory processes [17][18][19] and has been investigated among opioid dependents [15,16,[20][21][22][23][24].…”

Lower Gray Matter Density in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Putamen Can Be Traceable in Chronic Heroin Dependents after over 3 Months of Successful Abstinence

“…Anatomically, brain structural assessments have shown grey matter (GM) volume reduction mainly in prefrontal, frontal, temporal and cingulate cortices (9,(15)(16)(17). In addition, some cognitive impairments and behavioral abnormalities have been shown among heroin addicts, including higher impulsiveness during problem solving, increased commission errors during response suppression tasks, working memory impairments and abnormality in goal-directed behavior (6,18,19). Similar to other types of addiction, considering these two parallel findings in neuroimaging and cognitive functions, researchers have tried to find correspondence between them for more insight into heroin addiction mechanisms and its corresponding brain changes.…”