Recent cocaine use and memory impairment in HIV

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Infectious Diseases
• Addiction Medicine

Background:

• Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and cocaine use independently impair neuropsychological functioning.
• High comorbidity between HIV and cocaine use necessitates understanding their combined effects on cognition.
• Verbal memory deficits are a significant concern in HIV, impacting functional status.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the compounding effects of cocaine use on verbal memory in individuals with HIV.
• To identify specific memory processes (encoding, consolidation, retrieval) affected by concurrent HIV and cocaine use.
• To assess the impact of recent cocaine use on verbal memory using the Item Specific Deficit Approach (ISDA).

Main Methods:

• Utilized the California Verbal Learning Test-II to assess verbal memory.
• Compared HIV-positive participants with lifetime cocaine use diagnosis (HIV/CocDx+) and without (HIV/CocDx-).
• Compared HIV-positive participants with recent cocaine use confirmed by toxicology (HIV/Coc+) and without (HIV/Coc-).
• Employed the Item Specific Deficit Approach (ISDA) to analyze encoding, consolidation, and retrieval, controlling for attention.

Main Results:

• Conventional analysis showed worse learning, recall, and recognition in HIV/Coc+ compared to HIV/Coc-.
• The ISDA revealed that encoding was the only significant deficit differentiating HIV/Coc+ from HIV/Coc-, with HIV/Coc- performing better.
• Findings suggest cocaine use is associated with temporary verbal memory decline in HIV, primarily impacting encoding.

Conclusions:

• Cocaine use in individuals with HIV is linked to a temporary decline in verbal memory, characterized by encoding deficits.
• These cocaine-associated memory deficits in HIV may be partially reversible with abstinence.
• Reduced encoding is a key factor in verbal memory decline for HIV patients with cocaine use.