Sex-Differences in the Relationship between Methamphetamine-Use Experience and Spatial Memory in Non-Treatment Seeking Adults
Abstract
Methamphetamine remains a public health concern in the United States, and its use has been associated with detrimental effects on memory. More specifically, spatial memory deficits after methamphetamine exposure have been heavily researched in the rodent literature and sex-differences have been reported. However, the effects of methamphetamine on spatial memory in human studies remain underinvestigated and sex differences have not been considered. The current study recruited 30 community-dwelling people with recent or current methamphetamine-use experience, and 30 without methamphetamine-use experience people matched on sex and age. All participants completed a computerized spatial reconstruction task where they studied arrays of randomly positioned objects and then, after a short delay, attempted to reconstruct the remembered study array. Accuracy for both the general spatial arrangement and specific object-location bindings as well as various types of spatial-errors were evaluated. Data indicated that both groups were able to remember global features of the task similarly (i.e., the general spatial arrangement). However, large group differences were evident when specific object-location associative binding was assessed. These group differences were driven by males such that males, but not females, with methamphetamine-use experience were significantly impaired at remembering specific object-location pairings. Together, these findings underscore the need to further…
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