RESUMO
Objective To investigate the effects of different durations of methamphetamine abuse on spatial cognitive processing.Methods The mental rotation task was used to evaluate the spatial processing function of 35 methamphetamine abusers and 30 healthy subjects.The methamphetamine abusers are divided into 2 groups according to their abuse durations,group 1 contains 16 abusers with an average duration of 1 year and group 2 contains 19 abusers with an average duration of 3 years.Participants were asked to judge the right hand/food or the left hand/food of the experimental stimuli at difference angles.The reaction time (RT) and the accurate rate (AR) of the mental rotation task were recorded.Results Compared with the control group,RT of group 1 methamphetamine abusers was longer at the angle of 0°((1469±318)ms) and 180°((1718±412)ms) (P＜0.05),RT of group 2 was longer at the angle of 0°((1466±243) ms),60°((1497±294) ms) and 180°((1708±288) ms) (P ＜0.05).And the AR of methamphetamine abusers was higher at every angle (P＜0.05).Conclusion Long-term dependence on methamphetmine can damage the abuser's spatial processing function.