METHAMPHETAMINE use and dependency is a serious public health problem with implications across multiple areas from societal impact to burden on psychiatric and medical resources. Different areas such as East and Southeast Asia, Australia, Middle West and Western areas of United States and some regions of Great Britain are suffering from METHAMPHETAMINE use and related problems. An estimated 8% of admissions to substance abuse treatment programs are associated to stimulants with METHAMPHETAMINE misuse. The comparison of demographic characteristics and variety of substances in Methadone maintenance clinic of Baharan Psychiatry Hospital in Zahrdan, Iran in 2009-2011, has reported an increasing proceeding of METHAMPHETAMINE use from 6% to about 20%. The Administrator of Health and Social anti-drug campaign declared that the substance related psychotic symptoms are noticeable among METHAMPHETAMINE users, it has also been reported that 50% of patients of psychiatric wards consist of METHAMPHETAMINE users psychosis patients, which would bring a number of harmful demerits to this the wards.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate relation between sustained attention disorders and lenght of METHAMPHETAMINE abuse.Method: 200 METHAMPHETAMINE abusers (males and females) of ages 20-40 who were recruited through residential rehabilitation treatment, selected through random available sampling. To evaluate function of sustained attention Continuous Performance Test was taken and the length of MA abuse gained through demographic information.Data were analyzed by correlation coefficient with SPSS software.Findings: The results show that poor performance in CPT is positively correlated with length of MA abuse. Participants with long MA abuse has less correct response, more commission false and increase in reaction time.Conclusion: Based on these findings, it can be concluded that MA abuse leads to brain damages and cognitive deficits and it is resulting in poor treatment outcomes. Implementing cognitive rehabilitation techniques can increase treatment outcomes.

Background: METHAMPHETAMINE (meth) is recognized as a highly addictive psychostimulant. Currently, there are no available treatments for meth abuse, and no animal model of meth self-administration has been proposed to represent human meth selfadministration. Objectives: We aimed to develop a model to study meth self-administration through inhalation in rats. Methods: Rats were placed in an inhaler apparatus (designed specifically for this purpose) for 15 min per day over two weeks. There were two levers in the cage. Pressing the passive lever had no outcomes. Whereas, for each active lever pressing, an infusion pump delivered 50  L of meth or distilled water within two seconds. Meth was evaporated on a hot plate adjacent to the rat cage. After loading the drug over the hot plate, the blower fan was run, and the vaporized drug was blown by the fan into the rat cage. Then, meth-induced conditioned place preference and locomotor activity were assessed following 14 days of meth inhalation. The serum concentration of meth was also determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Results: In this model, the self-administration of meth through inhalation significantly increased locomotor activity, conditioned place preference, and plasma level of meth. Conclusions: We can conclude that the self-administration of meth through inhalation is a novel and effective route of selfadministration. Ournewprotocol presents a promising tool for examining drug-seeking/taking behaviorsandneural consequences in a noninvasive approach to reduce the stress of surgery and injection in laboratory animals and increase the validity of animal experiments.

Introduction: METHAMPHETAMINE is a powerful psychostimulant that causes significant neurological impairments with long-lasting effects and has provoked serious international concerns about public health. Denial of drug abuse and drug craving are two important factors that make the diagnosis and treatment extremely challenging. Here, we present a novel and rapid noninvasive method with potential application for differentiation and monitoring METHAMPHETAMINE abuse.Methods: Visual stimuli comprised a series of images with neutral and METHAMPHETAMINE-related content. A total of 10 METHAMPHETAMINE abusers and 10 age-gender matched controls participated in the experiments. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded and compared using a time window analysis method. The ERPs were divided into 19 time windows of 100 ms with 50 ms overlaps. The area of positive sections below each window was calculated to measure the differences between the two groups.Results: Significant differences between two groups were observed from 250 to 500 ms (P300) in response to METHAMPHETAMINE-related visual stimuli and 600 to 800 ms in response to neutral stimuli.Conclusion: This study presented a novel and noninvasive method based on neural correlates to discriminate healthy individuals from METHAMPHETAMINE drug abusers. This method can be employed in treatment and monitoring of the METHAMPHETAMINE abuse.