Circadian melatonin profile in opium and amphetamine dependent patients: A preliminary study

Habibolah Khazaie,Hamid Reza Ahmadi,Amir Kiani,Mohammad Rasoul Ghadami

doi:10.1016/j.nbscr.2019.100046

Habibolah Khazaie, Hamid Reza Ahmadi + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbscr.2019.100046

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Abstract

AimThe aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between opium and amphetamine dependency with the serum melatonin levels in the presence of circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD). ParticipantsForty four male amphetamine-dependent and opium-dependent patients with CRSD and with more than one year substance dependency were enrolled in this study. Control group consisted of twelve healthy male subjects. DesignThe diagnoses of sleep disorders were established by a psychiatrist and were made on the basis of the criteria of ICSD-II using the patients’ sleep logs. Blood samples were drawn every 4 h through an intravenous catheter. Serum melatonin levels were assayed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Repeated Measures Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to assess differences between the melatonin levels at six separate times. FindingThe serum melatonin levels of the control subjects were significantly higher than both opium-dependent and amphetamine-dependent patients at 24:00, 4:00 and 8:00. The serum melatonin level of the opium-dependent patients were significantly lower than the amphetamine-dependent patients at 24:00 (26.9 ± 11.4 vs. 41 ± 19.4, respectively; p = 0.006) and were significantly higher than the amphetamine-dependent patients at 16:00 (12.7 ± 5.1 vs. 8.9 ± 4.1, respectively; p = 0.011). ConclusionThis is an evidence of negative effects of substance dependence on circadian cycle of melatonin secretion among opium and amphetamine dependent patients.

Highlights

Amphetamine derivatives produce long-term neurotoxic effects on the central nervous system (Permpoonputtana et al, 2012)
A comparison of the variables between the opiumdependent patients and the amphetamine-dependent patients did not reveal any significant differences between the two groups in circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD) type (In the opium-dependent group, irregular sleep–wake type [ISWT], n = 8; delayed sleep phase type [DSPT], n = 14; and in the amphetamine-dependent group, irregular sleep–wake type [ISWT], n = 5; delayed sleep phase type [DSPT], n = 17; chi-square test, p: 0.322)
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in which the serum melatonin level of the opium-dependent patients and amphetamine-dependent patients have been compared

Summary

Introduction

Amphetamine derivatives produce long-term neurotoxic effects on the central nervous system (Permpoonputtana et al, 2012). The amphetamines derivatives abuse become an important public health problem. Acute administration of low doses of methamphetamine has positive subjective effects on mood and cognitive performance (Hart et al, 2002; Johnson et al, 2000), long-term abuse of larger doses has deleterious effects and is associated with cognitive impairments and mood disturbances (London et al, 2004, 2005). Most drugs can adversely affect sleep patterns and have negative impact on both the duration and frequency of sleep stages (Barkoukis and Avidan, 2007). Using any sedative and narcotic substance makes some changes in sleep; quitting and withdrawing of this substance makes cause sleep disturbances (KaplanSadock, 2009). The relationship between substance abuse and sleep is bidirectional in that substance use may directly lead to sleep disturbances, and sleep disturbances may be a risk factor for relapse to substance use (Kurth et al, 2009; Hasler et al, 2012)

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