Rusdi Rashid

The risk and associated factors of methamphetamine psychosis in methamphetamine-dependent patients in Malaysia

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the risk of lifetime and current methamphetamine-induced psychosis in patients with methamphetamine dependence. The association between psychiatric co-morbidity and methamphetamine-induced psychosis was also studied. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study conducted concurrently at a teaching hospital and a drug rehabilitation center in Malaysia. Patients with the diagnosis of methamphetamine based on DSM-IV were interviewed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.) for methamphetamine-induced psychosis and other Axis I psychiatric disorders. The information on sociodemographic background and drug use history was obtained from interview or medical records. RESULTS Of 292 subjects, 47.9% of the subjects had a past history of psychotic symptoms and 13.0% of the patients were having current psychotic symptoms. Co-morbid major depressive disorder (OR=7.18, 95 CI=2.612-19.708), bipolar disorder (OR=13.807, 95 CI=5.194-36.706), antisocial personality disorder (OR=12.619, 95 CI=6.702-23.759) and heavy methamphetamine uses were significantly associated with lifetime methamphetamine-induced psychosis after adjusted for other factors. Major depressive disorder (OR=2.870, CI=1.154-7.142) and antisocial personality disorder (OR=3.299, 95 CI=1.375-7.914) were the only factors associated with current psychosis. CONCLUSION There was a high risk of psychosis in patients with methamphetamine dependence. It was associated with co-morbid affective disorder, antisocial personality, and heavy methamphetamine use. It is recommended that all cases of methamphetamine dependence should be screened for psychotic symptoms.

Automatic diagnosis of alcohol use disorder using EEG features

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been considered as a social and health issue worldwide. More importantly, the screening of AUD patients has been challenging due to the subjectivity imparted by self-test reports. Automated methods involving neuroimaging modality such as quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) have shown promising research results. However, the QEEG methods were developed only for alcohol dependents (AD) and healthy controls. Therefore, this study sought to propose a machine learning (ML) method to classify 1) between alcohol abusers and healthy controls, and 2) among healthy controls, alcohol abusers, and alcoholics. The proposed ML method involved QEEG feature extraction, selection of most relevant features, and classification of the study participants into their relevant groups. The study participants such as 12 alcohol abusers (mean age 56.70ź15.33 years), 18 alcoholics (mean age 46.80ź9.29 years), and 15 healthy controls (mean 42.67ź15.90 years) were recruited to acquire EEG data. The data were recorded during 10 minutes of eyes closed (EC) and eyes open (EO) conditions. Furthermore, the EEG data were utilized to extract QEEG features such as absolute power (AP) and relative power (RP). Methods such as t-test and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed to select most relevant QEEG features. Finally, the discriminant QEEG features were used as inputs to the classification models: Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multilayer back-Propagation Network (MLP), and Logistic Model Trees (LMT), supported by 10-fold cross validation. As results, the LMT has achieved best performance rendering a classification accuracy (96%), sensitivity (97%) and specificity (93%). In addition, a further classification for each subgroup of AUD patients has achieved accuracy (>90%). In conclusion, the results implicated significant neurophysiological differences among alcohol abusers, alcoholics, and controls. Moreover, the AUD patients exhibited significantly decreased theta as compared with the healthy controls.

Acupuncture therapy for drug addiction

Acupuncture therapy has been used to treat substance abuse. This study aims to review experimental studies examining the effects of acupuncture on addiction. Research and review articles on acupuncture treatment of substance abuse published between January 2000 and September 2014 were searched using the databases ISI Web of Science Core Collection and EBSCO’s MEDLINE Complete. Clinical trial studies on the efficacy of acupuncture therapy for substance abuse were classified according to substance (cocaine, opioid, nicotine, and alcohol), and their treatment protocols, assessments, and findings were examined. A total of 119 studies were identified, of which 85 research articles addressed the efficacy of acupuncture for treating addiction. There were substantial variations in study protocols, particularly regarding treatment duration, frequency of electroacupuncture, duration of stimulation, and choice of acupoints. Contradictory results, intergroup differences, variation in sample sizes, and acupuncture placebo effects made it difficult to evaluate acupuncture effectiveness in drug addiction treatment. This review also identified a lack of rigorous study design, such as control of confounding variables by incorporating sham controls, sufficient sample sizes, reliable assessments, and adequately replicated experiments.

Neuroelectrophysiological approaches in heroin addiction research: A review of literatures.

Neuroelectrophysiological properties have been used in human heroin addiction studies. These studies vary in their approach, experimental conditions, paradigms, and outcomes. However, it is essential to integrate previous findings and experimental methods for a better demonstration of current issues and challenges in designing such studies. This Review examines methodologies and experimental conditions of neuroelectrophysiological research among heroin addicts during withdrawal, abstinence, and methadone maintenance treatment and presents the findings. The results show decrements in attentional processing and dysfunctions in brain response inhibition as well as brain activity abnormalities induced by chronic heroin abuse. Chronic heroin addiction causes increased β and α2 power activity, latency of P300 and P600, and diminished P300 and P600 amplitude. Findings confirm that electroencephalography (EEG) band power and coherence are associated with craving indices and heroin abuse history. First symptoms of withdrawal can be seen in high‐frequency EEG bands, and the severity of these symptoms is associated with brain functional connectivity. EEG spectral changes and event‐related potential (ERP) properties have been shown to be associated with abstinence length and tend to normalize within 3–6 months of abstinence. From the conflicting criteria and confounding effects in neuroelectrophysiological studies, the authors suggest a comprehensive longitudinal study with a multimethod approach for monitoring EEG and ERP attributes of heroin addicts from early stages of withdrawal until long‐term abstinence to control the confounding effects, such as nicotine abuse and other comorbid and premorbid conditions.

A review on EEG-based methods for screening and diagnosing alcohol use disorder

The screening test for alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients has been of subjective nature and could be misleading in particular cases such as a misreporting the actual quantity of alcohol intake. Although the neuroimaging modality such as electroencephalography (EEG) has shown promising research results in achieving objectivity during the screening and diagnosis of AUD patients. However, the translation of these findings for clinical applications has been largely understudied and hence less clear. This study advocates the use of EEG as a diagnostic and screening tool for AUD patients that may help the clinicians during clinical decision making. In this context, a comprehensive review on EEG-based methods is provided including related electrophysiological techniques reported in the literature. More specifically, the EEG abnormalities associated with the conditions of AUD patients are summarized. The aim is to explore the potentials of objective techniques involving quantities/features derived from resting EEG, event-related potentials or event-related oscillations data.

Treating heroin addiction: bridging the past and future- a Malaysian experience

Malaysia, with a population of 28.25 million, consists of Peninsular Malaysia and the Borneo states of Sarawak and Sabah. Substance abuse has been prevalent in Malaysia since the 19th century. In the early 20th century, the main drug of abuse was opium, which was primarily restricted to Chinese and Indian immigrant laborers who were introduced by British colonialists to work in Malaya (Noorzurani et al., 2008). However, the pattern of consumption changed in the 1970s when heroin became the abused substance of choice and Malays were the main ethnic group involved in heroin abuse compared to other ethnic groups, namely the Chinese and Indians (Noorzurani et al., 2008; Rusdi et al., 2008). By the 1980s, heroin use among Malaysian youth reached national crisis proportions (Navaratnam, 1988; Chawarski et al., 2006). A total of 194,897 drug dependents were registered by the National Anti-Drug Agency (NADA) in 1988; however, at the end of 2004, the numbers of drug dependents were estimated to be between 202,075 and 607,647 (Mahmood et al., 2005). By 2009, the cumulative number of confirmed drug addicts exceeded 300,000 (Sangeeth et al., 2009; Narayanan et al., 2011).

Evaluation of Psychometric Properties of the Second Version of the Taqwa (Piety) Questionnaire in Bahasa Melayu

The aim of the study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Bahasa Melayu version of the Taqwa (piety) questionnaire, used for the measurement of behaviour of Drug Dependency Syndrome (DDS), in Malay patients. A sample of 98 males with a psychiatric diagnosis (DSM-IV-R) as the DDS was randomly selected from Kajang Khafidz Polyclinic Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After receiving their agreement to attend the study, they completed the Taqwa (piety) questionnaire. The reliability was assessed by determining the Cronbach’s

EPA-0640 – The influence of parenting styles on the development and maintenance obsessive-compulsive disorder

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