UCLA

Objectives

Contingency management is a promising intervention for Methamphetamine Use Disorder (MUD).Impaired executive function may decrease adherence to such treatment, but there are few data on whether impairment in executive function predicts treatment outcomes. We therefore evaluated whether baseline performance on tests of executive function predicted treatment response in a trial of contingency management for MUD.

Methods

Thirty participants with MUD and 23 healthy controls performed the Connors Continuous Performance Task (CPT) and the Trail Making Task. MUD participants then entered an 8-week contingency management trial. Participants were categorized as responders (n=17; no methamphetamine-positive urine tests) or non-responders (n=13; >1 positive test). The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare scores in participants with MUD and healthy controls, and in responders versus non-responders.

Results

Participants withMUD performed worse than controls on the CPT (d-prime) (p=0.012); non-responders performed worse than responders (p = 0.034). Performance of MUD participants did not differ significantly from controls on the Trail Making Task B (time to completion), but variation was high with non-responders performing worse than responders (p=0.013).

Conclusion

These findings suggest that tests of executive function at baseline may be useful in predicting treatment response in MUD. Future work in larger samples may ultimately allow a more personalized treatment approach to methamphetamine use disorder.