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Impaired delay discounting and time sensitivity in methcathinone use disorder

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Abstract

Substance use disorder (SUD) is characterized by continued drug use despite adverse consequences. Methcathinone is a new type of psychoactive substance that is associated with high excitement and impulsive behaviors. However, it is unclear if individuals with methcathinone use disorders (MCUD) are with impaired decision-making ability. We analyzed the task performance in 45 male MCUD subjects and 35 male matched healthy controls (HC) with intertemporal decision-making task. Constant sensitivity discounting model was used to estimate potential changes in both discounting rate and time sensitivity. The results showed that MCUD individuals exhibited a higher delay discounting rate (p = 0.003, Cohen’s d = 0.683) and reduced sensitivity to time (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 1.662). The delay discounting rate was correlated to the first age for drug use (r = − 0.41, p = 0.004), and the time sensitivity was negatively correlated with the duration of abstinence (r = − 0.31, p = 0.036). We conclude that MCUD individuals are with impaired decision-making ability and time perception disturbances.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Professor Trevor Robbins for his critical comments on this study.

Funding

The work was also supported by the Guangdong grant ‘Key technologies for the treatment of brain disorders’ (No. 2018B030331001), Hundred-Talent Fund from Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health (2018BR21), Medicine and Engineering Interdisciplinary Research Fund of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (ZH2018ZDA30), and innovative research team of high-level local universities in Shanghai.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Ningning Zeng, Hui Zheng, and Tianshu Shi have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Ningning Zeng, Hui Zheng, Hang-Bin Zhang & Ti-Fei Yuan

  2. Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Ningning Zeng

  3. School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Bei**g, China

    Tianshu Shi & Bo Yang

  4. Changzhi Drug Rehabilitation Center, Changzhi, China

    Li-Xun Wang

  5. CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Bei**g, China

    Zhu-Yuan Liang & Li-Lin Rao

  6. Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    Zhu-Yuan Liang & Li-Lin Rao

  7. Department of Functional Neurosurgery, Rui** Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Bomin Sun

  8. Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Yanhui Liao

  9. Co-innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, China

    Ti-Fei Yuan

  10. Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Ti-Fei Yuan

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  1. Ningning Zeng
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Contributions

T-FY designed the study and provided the funding support; Z-YL, L-LR, and BY provided the experiment program and the statistical analysis strategy; TS, HZ, and L-XW collected the data; NZ and HZ searched the literature, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript; BS and YL provided analysis suggestion and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Li-Lin Rao, Bo Yang or Ti-Fei Yuan.

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Zeng, N., Zheng, H., Shi, T. et al. Impaired delay discounting and time sensitivity in methcathinone use disorder. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 272, 1595–1602 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-021-01372-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-021-01372-7

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