Objective: Inhibitory deficits contribute to impulsive drug-seeking behavior in individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD). Whether abstinent individuals with MUD exhibit greater cognitive disinhibition when the suppressed response is associated with drug-related images is not fully known. This study evaluated the potency of drug-associated cue exposure in this process.
Method: We recruited 54 abstinent men with MUD and 46 healthy control (HC) subjects to complete a novel go/no-go task in which drug-associated cues were presented in 240 trials.
Results: Upon exposure to drug-associated cues, the numbers of commission errors increased significantly only in the abstinent MUD group (p < .001), and the abstinent MUD group produced higher levels of commission errors than the HC group (p = .009). When drug-associated cues were not available (in scrambled trials), the abstinent MUD group produced similar levels of commission errors when compared with the HC group (p = .336). The reaction times in drug cue exposure trials were longer than in scrambled trials across groups (p < .001), whereas the abstinent MUD group produced shorter reaction times than HCs, regardless of trial conditions (p = .004).
Conclusions: The novel go/no-go task is a useful method for detecting impulsivity in abstinent individuals with MUD. Cue exposure triggers impairment of inhibitory control in individuals with MUD at abstinence.