Perseverative Responding in Nigerian Chronic Alcohol and Marijuana Users

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Cross-cultural studies

Background:

• Substance use, particularly alcohol and marijuana, is linked to executive functioning deficits in Western populations.
• The generalizability of these findings to non-Western cultural contexts remains largely unexplored.
• Early initiation of substance use may exacerbate cognitive alterations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between chronic alcohol or marijuana use and executive functioning in male university students in Nigeria.
• To assess whether executive function deficits observed in Western populations extend to a Nigerian context.
• To characterize executive dysfunction in a non-Western population exposed to regular substance use.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving chronic alcohol users (n=39), chronic marijuana users (n=35), and drug-abstinent controls (n=40).
• Participants were recruited using a snow-ball sampling technique from a Nigerian university.
• The computerized Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (cWCST) was administered to assess executive functions: set shifting, rule inference, and set maintenance.

Main Results:

• Both chronic alcohol and marijuana users exhibited a selective set-shifting deficit compared to the control group.
• Participants in the substance-using groups committed significantly more perseverative errors on the cWCST.
• Group differences were more pronounced for set shifting than for rule inference or set maintenance.

Conclusions:

• The findings support the generalizability of substance use-related executive functioning deficits across different cultural contexts.
• This study contributes to understanding executive dysfunction in non-Western populations, specifically Nigerian university students.
• Further longitudinal research is needed to determine if executive dysfunction precedes or results from substance use in this population.