L. Chang et al., Gender effects on persistent cerebral metabolite changes in the frontal lobes of abstinent cocaine users, AM J PSYCHI, 156(5), 1999, pp. 716-722
Objective: Previous studies found functional changes in the frontal brain r
egion and regions with projections to the frontal lobe in cocaine users. Th
e aim of this study was to investigate persistent neurochemical changes in
the frontal lobes of subjects with a history of crack cocaine dependence an
d to determine whether these changes are different in male and female users
. Method: The frontal gray and white matter of 64 young asymptomatic and ab
stinent (>5 months) cocaine users (34 male and 30 female) and 58 healthy co
mparison subjects without a history of drug abuse was evaluated with locali
zed proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1-MRS). Results: Two-way anal
ysis of variance showed significant cocaine effects on the concentration of
frontal gray matter N-acetyl compounds, on the ratio of frontal white matt
er N-acetyl compounds to creatine levels, on frontal gray and white matter
myoinositol levels, and on the ratio of myoinositol to creatine. Significan
t gender effects were observed for frontal gray matter choline-containing c
ompounds, the ratio of choline-containing compounds to creatine, and the pe
rcentage of CSF in both gray and white matter. Interaction effects of cocai
ne and gender were observed for creatine, N-acetyl/creatine ratio, and myoi
nositol/creatine ratio in frontal white matter. Conclusions: Cocaine use is
associated with neuronal injury (with decreased N-acetyl compounds) in the
frontal cortex and glial activation (with increased myoinositol) in both f
rontal gray and white matter. In the frontal lobe, cocaine affects male use
rs differently than female users. Future studies on the effects of cocaine
abuse should control for the effects of gender-specific neurotoxicity.