Sex differences in HIV effects on visual memory among substance-dependent individuals

ABSTRACT

HIV’s effects on episodic memory have not been compared systematically between male and female substance-dependent individuals. We administered the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test–Revised (BVMT–R) to 280 substance-dependent HIV+ and HIV– men and women. Groups were comparable on demographic, substance use, and comorbid characteristics. There were no significant main effects of sex or HIV serostatus on BVMT–R performance, but HIV+ women performed significantly more poorly on delayed recall. This effect was most prominent among cocaine-dependent HIV+ women. Our findings are consistent with recent speculation that memory impairment may be more common among HIV+ women, particularly those with a history of cocaine dependence.

KEYWORDS:

• Cocaine
• Hippocampus
• HIV
• Memory
• Prefrontal cortex
• Sex differences
• Substance use disorder

Acknowledgements

We thank Haley Sullins, Stan Chen, and Chrissy Franco for data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Although prospective memory is considered a type of episodic memory, it was not investigated in the current study, and throughout this article, the term “episodic memory” refers specifically to recall of previous information (“retrospective”).

² Participants who tested positive for cannabis were not excluded if testing was negative for all other substances. The presence of THC metabolites in the urine did not necessarily indicate cannabis use within 1–2 days prior to testing due to its much longer half-life.

³ ASI data were not available for approximately 91 participants; this measure was added to the protocol after data collection was initiated, and (unlike the BVMT–R) was administered during the second testing visit. Thus, interpretation of this finding is necessarily tentative.

⁴ Published norm-referenced T-scores were available for Total and Delayed Recall, but not for the Recognition Discrimination Index. By convention we computed RDI by subtracting the total false positives from the total recognition hits.

⁵ Years of education were significantly correlated with BVMT–R Total and Delayed Recall and RDI scores (r = .26, 27, and .19, respectively, p < .01). However, forward linear regression analyses of BVMT–R scores with WTAR and Education as predictors showed evidence of collinearity (eigenvalue = .007). Thus analyses of BVMT–R scores employed WTAR scores but not education as covariates.

⁶ However, Meyer et al. (2013) reported that HIV+ women showed significantly poorer semantic clustering than HIV– women on a verbal learning task.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse [grant number R01 DA12828 to Eileen Martin].