title: Effect of electro-acupuncture intervention on cognition attention bias in heroin addiction abstinence-a dot-probe-based event-related potential study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the changes of cognitive attention-related brain function in the heroin addicts before and after electro-acupuncture (EA) intervention for exploring the concerned neuro-mechanism of addictive relapse and the central action role of EA intervention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Adopting event-related potential (ERP) technique, the ERP at 64 electrode spots in 10 heroin addicts (test group) were recorded before and after EA intervention with dot-probe experimental form during implementing cognitive task on positive emotional clue (PEC), negative emotional clues (NEC), and heroin-related clue (HRC). The P200 amplitude components on the selected observation points (Fz, Cz, and Pz) were analyzed and compared with those obtained from 10 healthy subjects as the control.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Before EA, the ERP of attention on HRC in the test group was higher than that on PEC and NEC (P<0.05) and significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05); after EA, the P200 amplitude of attention on HRC at Cz and Pz was significantly lowered (P<0.05) and that on PEC at Fz was significantly elevated (P<0.05). After EA, the P200 amplitude at Pz was ranked as NEC > PEC > HRC, but in the control group, it showed PEC > HRC at all three observation points and PEC > NEC at Pz.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Heroin addicts show attention bias to HRC, which could be significantly reduced by EA intervention, illustrating that EA could effectively inhibit the attention bias to heroin and so might have potential for lowering the relapse rate.
authors.affiliation: Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, Urumchi 830000, China.
authors.forename: Ying-Ping
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Guang-Hua
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D015671:Electroacupuncture; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013375:Substance Withdrawal Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*