Abstract
Rationale
Considerable research indicates that methamphetamine use is associated with neurocognitive impairment, but no empirical study to date has assessed whether these difficulties extend to memory for future intentions (prospective memory).
Objectives
The present study assessed prospective performance on a laboratory measure of prospective memory that closely represents the types of prospective memory tasks that actually occur in everyday life and provides an opportunity to investigate the different sorts of prospective memory failures that occur (“Virtual Week”).
Materials and methods
Twenty adults with confirmed history of methamphetamine use and dependence, currently engaged in rehabilitation and confirmed to be abstinent for an average period of 6 months, and 20 methamphetamine-naive participants were tested on Virtual Week. Various other aspects of cognitive function were also assessed, including retrospective memory and executive functioning.
Results
Methamphetamine users were significantly impaired on Virtual Week, and these deficits did not vary as a function of specific prospective memory task demands. Of all the cognitive measures, cognitive inhibition shared greatest variance with group effects on the prospective memory measure.
Conclusions
Prospective memory performance is sensitive to prior methamphetamine use even well into abstinence. Methamphetamine users experience generalized difficulties with prospective memory, suggesting that these deficits are likely to have important implications for day-to-day functioning.
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Acknowledgements
We hereby declare we have no conflicts with this research and did not receive funds from a commercial sponsor. We also declare that the experiments comply with the current laws of Australia, the country in which they were performed. We acknowledge the help of Trevor Daniels in programming Virtual Week, the assistance of Xochitl de la Piedad Garcia with statistical analysis and support of Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service (CRS Australia) in recruiting participants. Support was provided by grant from the Australian Research Council and a grant from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Australian Catholic University.
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Rendell, P.G., Mazur, M. & Henry, J.D. Prospective memory impairment in former users of methamphetamine. Psychopharmacology 203, 609–616 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-008-1408-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-008-1408-0