Effect of electro-acupuncture intervention on cognition attention bias in heroin addiction abstinence—A dot-probe-based event-related potential study (original) (raw)

Abstract

Objective

To study the changes of cognitive attention-related brain function in the heroin addicts before and after electro-acupuncture (EA) intervention for exploring the concerned neuro-mechanism of addictive relapse and the central action role of EA intervention.

Methods

Adopting event-related potential (ERP) technique, the ERP at 64 electrode spots in 10 heroin addicts (test group) were recorded before and after EA intervention with dot-probe experimental form during implementing cognitive task on positive emotional clue (PEC), negative emotional clues (NEC), and heroin-related clue (HRC). The P200 amplitude components on the selected observation points (Fz, Cz, and Pz) were analyzed and compared with those obtained from 10 healthy subjects as the control.

Results

Before EA, the ERP of attention on HRC in the test group was higher than that on PEC and NEC (P<0.05) and significantly higher than that in the control group (_P_<0.05); after EA, the P200 amplitude of attention on HRC at Cz and Pz was significantly lowered (_P_<0.05) and that on PEC at Fz was significantly elevated (_P_<0.05). After EA, the P200 amplitude at Pz was ranked as NEC > PEC > HRC, but in the control group, it showed PEC > HRC at all three observation points and PEC > NEC at Pz.

Conclusion

Heroin addicts show attention bias to HRC, which could be significantly reduced by EA intervention, illustrating that EA could effectively inhibit the attention bias to heroin and so might have potential for lowering the relapse rate.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Leshner AI. Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters. Science 1997;278:45–47.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  2. Cai ZJ. The global drug problem and its trend. Chin J Drug Depend (Chin) 1999;8:6–10.
    Google Scholar
  3. O’Brien CP. A range of research-based pharmacotherapies for addiction. Science 1997;278:66–70.
    Article PubMed Google Scholar
  4. Franken IH, Stam CJ, Hendriks VM, van den Brink W. Neurophysiological evidence for abnormal cognitive processing of drug cues in heroin dependence. Psychopharmacology 2003;170:205–212.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  5. Zhang CY, Jiao SF. Study of brain evoked potentials in heroin addicts. Chin J Drug Depend (Chin) 2006;15:24–26.
    Google Scholar
  6. Attou A, Figiel C, Timsit-Berthier M. Opioid addiction: P300 assessment in treatment by methadone substitution. Neurophysiol Clin 2001;31:171–180.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  7. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (DSM-IV). Arlington: American Psychiatric Association; 1994:247.
    Google Scholar
  8. DeRubeis RJ, Crits-Christoph P. Empirically supported individual and group psychological treatments for adult mental disorders. J Consult Clin Psychol 1998;66:37–52.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  9. Feng JH, Wei F. A review of research results of brain function imaging on drug addicts. J Dev Psychol (Chin) 1999;7:31–34.
    Google Scholar
  10. Mangun GR, Hillyard SA. Mechanisms and models of selective attention. In: Rugg MD, Coles MGH, eds. Electrophysiology of mind: event-related brain potentials and cognition. New York: Oxford; 1995:40–86.
    Google Scholar
  11. Carretié L, Iglesias J. An ERP study on the specificity of facial expression processing. Int J Psychophysiol 1995;19:183–192.
    Article PubMed Google Scholar
  12. McDonough BE, Warren CA, Don NS. Event-related potentials in a guessing task: the gleam in the eye effect. Int J Neurosci 1992;65:209–219.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  13. Herrmann MJ, Weijers HG, Wiesbeck GA, Aranda D, Böning J, Fallgatter AJ. Event-related potentials and cue-reactivity in alcoholism. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2000;24:1724–1729.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  14. Warren CA, McDonough BE. Event-related brain potentials as indicators of smoking cue-reactivity. Clin Neurophysiol 1999;110:1570–1584.
    Article PubMed CAS Google Scholar
  15. Jiang YP, Xu P, Wang Y, Lu GH. Effects of electro-acupuncture on event-related potentials in male heroin addicts’ emotion attention. Shanghai J Tradit Chin Med (Chin) 2007;41:60–62.
    Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, Urumchi, 830000, China
    Ying-ping Jiang (姜迎萍) & Hao Liu (刘 浩)
  2. Acupuncture-Massage College of Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine University, Shanghai, 201203, China
    Ping Xu (徐 平)
  3. Department of Psychology, Huadong Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China
    Yan Wang (王 岩)
  4. Shanghai Voluntary Abstinence Medical Rehabilitation Center, Shanghai, 201108, China
    Guang-hua Lu (陆光华)

Authors

  1. Ying-ping Jiang (姜迎萍)
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
  2. Hao Liu (刘 浩)
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
  3. Ping Xu (徐 平)
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
  4. Yan Wang (王 岩)
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
  5. Guang-hua Lu (陆光华)
    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence toHao Liu (刘 浩).

Additional information

Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30271637) and Research Items of the Education Committee of Shanghai (No. 07ZZ48)

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jiang, Yp., Liu, H., Xu, P. et al. Effect of electro-acupuncture intervention on cognition attention bias in heroin addiction abstinence—A dot-probe-based event-related potential study.Chin. J. Integr. Med. 17, 267–271 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-011-0698-y

Download citation

Keywords