Sun. Oct 13, 2019 8:40 AM - 10:20 AM Room 4 (409)

Organizer / Chair: Yanhui LIAO (Mental Health Institute, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, China), Co-chair: Kenji MATSUMOTO (Tamagawa University, Brain Science Institute, Japan), Discussants: ‌Tanay MAITI (All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India), Mei YANG (Shenzhen Mental Health Center, Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, China)

Methamphetamine and ketamine are commonly used drugs. In this symposium, we will present the abnormalities of cognitive function, neuroimaging and genetics in chronic methamphetamine users and ketamine users.
Aerobic exercise may improve cognitive impairment in methamphetamine users. To verify whether 12-week moderate-intensity aerobic exercise has beneficial effects on oxidative stress markers in blood and on cognitive functions in patients who have methamphetamine dependence, Serum levels of oxidative stress markers (including total anti-oxidation capability, super oxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and methane dicarboxylic aldehyde (MDA)) were measured at baseline (all participants) and the 12-week follow-up (methamphetamine-dependent patients). Serum levels of CAT and MDA in methamphetamine-dependent patients (n = 68) were higher than those in healthy controls (n = 35) at baseline. The international shopping list (ISL) task scores of methamphetamine-dependent patients were significantly lower than those of the controls. Aerobic exercise improved the processing speed in methamphetamine-dependent patients. Of interest, aerobic exercise significantly attenuated a spontaneous increase in serum MDA levels in methamphetamine-dependent patients after 12-weeks of abstinence.
Besides cognitive impairments, chronic methamphetamine use also associates with bad psychological wellbeing. To verify these consequences, 54 MA addicts and 58 healthy controls completed the cognitive assessment battery and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan at baseline and six-month follow-up. MA users exhibited cognitive impairments at baseline, but their performance was improved at the six-month abstinence. MA users showed less activation in left precuneus, cingulate cortex, and bilateral cerebellum anterior lobe during cognitive task.
Chronic use of methamphetamine also induces psychosis. In order to investigate epigenetic mechanism of methamphetamine induced psychosis (MIP), this study collected peripheral blood leukocytes from subjects. Illumina Infinium Human Methylation 450K was performed to discover DNA methylation sites retaled to MIP and non-MIP. After analyzing the functions and signaling pathways by using DAVID and GO database, candidate genes (n=7) were verified by Taqman probe qPCR (MethyLight) between patients with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) with MIP (n=99, follow-up 15) compared to patients with MUD without MIP (n=150) and health controls (n=282). This study preliminary suggests that hypermethylation of APLO3, UBA6, KIF17, MILLT3 and GRM8 might be the epigenetic mechanism of MIP.
Previous neuroimaging studies have provided evidence of grey matter and white matter abnormalities in chronic ketamine users. However, little is known about whether or not these abnormalities cause disruption of the topological properties of brain structural networks and cortical gray matter loss. The aim of the study was to assess the disruption of small-world networks drug-induced cortical gray matter loss in 41 chronic ketamine users with 44 matched healthy controls. Chronic ketamine users showed decreased clustering coefficient (Cp), gamma, sigma and local efficiency, but the length path (Lp) and global efficiency remained unchanged. Small-world network properties were negative associated with quality of ketamine; clustering coefficient were negative associations psychiatric symptoms measured by PANSS in chronic ketamine users. Chronic ketamine users had gray matter thickness reduction in several brain regions, such as the lateral Superior Parietal Cortex, the lateral Superior Frontal Cortex, the lateral Fusiform Gyrus, and the right Cuneus.