Heroin addiction and associative learning

Abstract

Associative Learning as a dysfunctional cognitive domain has been thoroughly investigated in disorders involving a hyperdopaminergic pathway. Kamin Blocking and Latent Inhibition tests have been used as operational tools to test associative learning in a sample of sixty male participants with ages ranging between sixteen and forty. Thirty nine of these were former heroin addicted individuals while the rest of the cohort were non-using controls. The heroin addicted group was further subdivided into individuals in Methadone Maintenance Programme (n=19) and Abstinent Abuser (n=20). The heroin addicted cohort displayed less Kamin blocking than the education-matched control group while in the Latent Inhibition test no such differences were apparent. Depressive symptoms were more evident in the MMP group while age of first use of heroin and family association of substance abuse did seem to correlate with the degree of blocking. Key words: heroin addiction, methadone maintenance, abstinence, depression, Kamin Blocking, latent Inhibition.