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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 2024, 26, 34

The maintenance treatment with opium tincture and exercise normalize the electroencephalographic changes and reduce visual image-induced craving in opioid use disorder patients

Mahya Bavisi, Roshanak Tirdad, Raheb Ghorbani, Masoud Hajirasouli, Reza Khosrowabadi, and Hossein Miladi-Gorji

Digital Object Identifier:
https://doi.org/10.62401/2531-4122-2024-34

Summary: Background: This study investigated the effect of opium tincture (OT) and exercise in the long-term period on the resting state of electroencephalographic (EEG) power and visual image-induced craving in opioid use disorder patients. Method: It was a pretest-posttest randomized controlled trial design. Two groups of opiate-dependent male patients were treated with OT and/or OT/exercise for 44 weeks. Electroencephalography (EEG) recording and visual image-induced craving using a visual analogue scale were assessed before and after treatment. Results: Maintenance treatment with OT and exercise has proven to significantly decrease the craving score. Our findings showed a significant decrease in the absolute power of the total bands in parietal-occipital, central, temporal and parietal-occipital regions in eyes open condition, in patients receiving OT/EX. Also, the spectral powers of theta and the total bands decreased, and the frequency bands of alpha 2, beta 2 and gamma increased in patients receiving OT/EX. Conclusion: This study was able to investigate the strong effect of prolonged exercise in patients treated with OT by normalizing the EEG changes to reduce craving.

Keywords: Opioid use disorder; Opium tincture; Craving; Visual analogue scale