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. 2016 Mar;38(1):58-60.
doi: 10.1590/1516-4446-2015-1708.

Crack-cocaine dependence and aging: effects on working memory

Breno Sanvicente-Vieira  1 , Júlia Kommers-Molina  1 , Tatiana De Nardi  1 , Ingrid Francke  1 , Rodrigo Grassi-Oliveira  1
Affiliations

Crack-cocaine dependence and aging: effects on working memory

Breno Sanvicente-Vieira et al. Braz J Psychiatry. 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Objective: To compare the working memory (WM) performance of young adult crack-cocaine dependent users, healthy older adults, and a control group of healthy young adults.

Methods: A total of 77 female participants took part in this study: 26 young adult crack-cocaine dependent users (CRK), 19 healthy older adults (HO), and 32 healthy younger adults (HC). All participants completed the N-back verbal task.

Results: A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed. The model included education, income, and medication use as covariates. A group effect (F6,140 = 7.192, p < 0.001) was found. Post-hoc analyses showed that the performance of the CRK and HO groups was reduced compared to the HC group in two N-back conditions. No differences between the HO and CRK groups on WM performance were found.

Conclusions: CRK participants perform similar to HO participants on a WM task, despite the well-known effects of age on WM and the young age of CRK. These data point to a possible parallel between cognitive declines associated with crack use and developmental aging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

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