Neuroimaging of Motor Control in Chronic Cocaine Users

描述(由申请人提供)：运动障碍，包括抽搐、肌张力障碍和运动障碍，往往被忽视，但长期滥用可卡因会造成致残后果。这些运动控制缺陷的持续存在表明，长期接触可卡因对黑质纹状体多巴胺系统有持久的影响，尽管这一假说尚未在人类身上得到明确验证。因此，这项提议的首要目标是通过功能神经成像将基础科学发现转化为人类成瘾者，以表征可能突出可卡因相关运动障碍的感觉运动网络变化。这项功能磁共振研究将检查慢性可卡因使用者相对于执行视觉线索运动任务(目标1)和记忆线索运动任务(目标2)的对照组发生的行为和神经功能变化。通过这些目标，我试图将之前的基础科学研究转化为慢性可卡因成瘾者感觉运动障碍的人体模型。随着20世纪80年代可卡因热潮中的平均年轻吸毒者达到中年，在此期间，运动障碍可能首先在临床上被发现，这些患者运动障碍的神经生物学基础可能越来越受到公众的重视。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Movement disturbances, including tics, dystonia, and dyskinesias, are often overlooked yet disabling consequences of chronic cocaine abuse. The persistence of these motor control deficits implies that prolonged cocaine exposure has lasting effects on the nigrostriatal dopamine system, though this hypothesis has not been explicitly tested in humans. Accordingly, the overarching goal of this proposal is to translate basic science findings to human addicts through functional neuroimaging in order to characterize sensorimotor network changes which may underscore cocaine-related motor disturbances. This functional MRI investigation will examine the behavioral and neurofunctional changes that occur in chronic cocaine users relative to controls performing a visually-cued motor task (Aim #1) and a memory-cued motor task (Aim #2). Through these aims I seek to translate previous basic science research to a human model of sensorimotor disturbance in chronic cocaine addicts. As the average young user in the cocaine boom of the 1980s reaches the middle age, during which may movement disorders first become clinically detectable, the neurobiologic basis for movement dysfunction in these patients may be of increasing public priority.