Neuropsychological performance of recently abstinent alcoholics and cocaine abusers

To examine possible influences of premorbid and comorbid factors on the neuropsychological test performance of recently abstinent (3-5 weeks) drug abusers, we studied 24 alcoholics, 23 cocaine abusers, and 22 healthy controls of comparable age and education. Both alcoholics and cocaine abusers performed significantly more poorly than controls on most measures of learning and memory, problem solving and abstraction and perceptual-motor speed, but the groups did not differ on the measure of sustained attention. Correlational analyses revealed no significant relationships between measures of childhood and residual hyperactivity and neuropsychological performance; scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were related only to performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The findings indicate that abuse of cocaine or alcohol is associated with deficits on neuropsychological tests which cannot be attributed to specific premorbid or comorbid factors such as depression or childhood or residual attention deficit disorder.