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Cocaine dependence: a fast-track for brain ageing?

Molecular Psychiatry volume 18, pages 134–135 (2013)Cite this article

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Cocaine-dependent individuals anecdotally appear aged and their mortality rates are estimated up to eight times higher than in the healthy population.1 Psychological and physiological changes typically associated with old age such as cognitive decline, brain atrophy, or immunodeficiency are also seen in middle-aged cocaine-dependent individuals.2, 3 These observations raise the question of whether cocaine abuse might accelerate the process of normal ageing. Although this is a little-studied area, there are several reasons for assuming that chronic cocaine exposure interferes with the processes of brain ageing.

We compared the effects of age on gray matter volume in 120 individuals aged 18–50 years (Supplementary Information). Half of the sample met the standard diagnostic criteria for cocaine dependence of the DSM-IV-TR;4 whereas the other half had no history of substance misuse disorders or major psychiatric disorders. The two groups were matched for age (t118=−0.12, P=0.905), gender (χ2=2.8, P=0.148), and verbal IQ (t115=−0.36, P=0.716), as described elsewhere.5 All participants underwent a structural MRI brain scan, which was analyzed using voxel-based morphometry5 to produce whole-brain maps of age-related change in gray matter volume.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute and Department of Experimental Psychology and Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    K D Ersche, P S Jones, G B Williams, T W Robbins & E T Bullmore

  2. Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    G B Williams

  3. Clinical Unit Cambridge, GlaxoSmithKline, Addenbrooke's Centre for Clinical Investigations, Cambridge, UK

    E T Bullmore

  4. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK

    E T Bullmore

Authors
  1. K D Ersche
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  2. P S Jones
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  3. G B Williams
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  4. T W Robbins
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  5. E T Bullmore
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to K D Ersche.

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Competing interests

This work was funded and sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline (RG45422) and conducted within the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Unit Cambridge (UK) and the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cambridge, which is jointly funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. KDE and PSJ, who are both supported by an MRC research grant, declare no conflict of interest. GBW declares that he has no potential conflict of interest. TWR consults for Cambridge Cognition, Lilly, Lundbeck and GlaxoSmithKline, and is currently in receipt of research grants from these companies. ETB is employed part-time by GlaxoSmithKline and part-time by the University of Cambridge.

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Ersche, K., Jones, P., Williams, G. et al. Cocaine dependence: a fast-track for brain ageing?. Mol Psychiatry 18, 134–135 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2012.31

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