NCT01189214

Psychopharmacotherapy in Multiple Substances Abuse

Psychopharmacotherapy in Multiple Substances Abuse / Dependence - the Pharmacological and Immunological Approach to the New Indication of Memantine

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 3
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 200 (actual)
• Sponsor: National Cheng-Kung University Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Add-on of memantine or placebo treatment will proceed in a double-blinded fashion for 12 weeks after adjusted methadone dose. During the study, the investigators will evaluate treatment response and adverse effect from multiple dimensions to elucidate the therapeutic effect of add-on memantine on addictive behaviors. It will also explore the possible advantage of this treatment on social re-adaptation and psychopathogenesis of opioid dependence.

Detailed description

Opioid dependence is currently a severe problem for public health and social security. Methadone maintenance therapy may decrease the criminal rate and increase the quality of life for individuals with opioid dependence, but the high drop-out rate and long-term requirement to use of methadone are major problems in methadone maintenance therapy for opioid dependence. Methadone is after all another long acting opioid which may cause dependence. Therefore, current effort of methadone maintenance therapy is limited. Memantine used to be recognized as a noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist. It was found with neuroprotective effects in several neurodegenerative diseases in recent few years. Memantine could inhibit brain inflammatory response through its action on reuroglial cells and provide neurotrophic effect. Previous studies also found memantine with inhibitory effects addictive behaviors in several substances. All of the above demonstrated that the combination of memantine and methadone in treating substance dependence prossess unique advantages, which may be superior to the original treatment. The main purpose of this study is to explore the neuroprotective effect of memantine on inhibition of brain inflammatory response through its action on reuroglial cells. Besides, we will evaluate the therapeutic effect of the combination of memantine and methadone in the subjects with opioid combine amphetamine dependence/abuse. It will also investigate multiple pathogenesis of addictive behaviors from the perspective of treatment response.

Conditions

• Substance Abuse

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Memantine	Add-on of memantine or placebo treatment will proceed in a double-blinded fashion for 12 weeks after adjusted methadone dose. During the study, we will evaluate treatment response and adverse effect from multiple dimensions to elucidate the therapeutic effect of add-on memantine on addictive behaviors. It will also explore the possible advantage of this treatment on social re-adaptation and psychopathogenesis of opioid dependence.

Timeline

• Start date: 2009-03-01
• Primary completion: 2011-02-01
• Completion: 2011-06-01
• First posted: 2010-08-26
• Last updated: 2013-02-28

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Taiwan