Methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) has risen among women globally and is disproportionately higher in prisons. In Indonesia, correctional facilities still lack any structured and evidence-based psychological therapy. To address this gap, we developed the Indonesia Substance Use Reduction for Female Therapy (Indo-SURFT).

A single-arm unblinded design with a 3-month follow-up was conducted among incarcerated women with MUD. Participants completed 12 sessions over six weeks. Assessments included user perception ratings, Addiction Severity Index (ASI), Visual Analog Scale for craving, University of Rhode Island Change Assessment Scale, Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20), and WHO Quality-of-Life Brief (WHOQOL-BREF).

A total of 33 incarcerated women with MUD participated and the median age was 35 (21–57). All of the participants had complete attendance during the 6-week program. By week 12, participants rated the Indo-SURFT module as useful (Mdiff = 0.484, 95%CI [0.235, 0.732], p < 0.001, d = 0.482). Employment-related ASI scores improved post-intervention (B = −0.076, p = 0.002) and at follow-up (B = −0.106, p = 0.004). Psychiatric domain of ASI remained stable post-intervention but increased after follow-up (B = 0.200, p ≤ 0.001). Craving declined post-treatment but rose at follow-up (B = 1.247, p = 0.036). SRQ-20 increased over time, while WHOQOL-BREF declined.

Indo-SURFT is tolerable and feasible for women with MUD in incarceration. Participants highly rated the module and delivery. The module demonstrates initial improvement in functional domain and curbs craving level during treatment. Maintenance sessions may be required to fully maintain and enhance improvements. These findings support Indo-SURFT’s as a potential intervention but requires further multisite investigation to enhance generalizability.

Sexual minority (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and other non-heterosexual) people experience significant disparities in addiction problems compared with heterosexual people.

We aimed to answer the question, what are the barriers and facilitators to accessing drug/alcohol addiction treatment services for sexual minority adults?’.

A systematic review was conducted by searching Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Sociological Abstracts for any English-language primary research article (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods) relevant to the study aims, from inception up to 18 April 2025. Quality of included studies was assessed using the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT-2018). Barriers and facilitators were categorised into ‘service-related’ and ‘patient-related’ dimensions of accessibility, and synthesised narratively.

We screened 3282 abstracts, with full-text review of 238 articles; 62 studies met the inclusion criteria. Common service-related barriers included explicit harassment, discrimination, violence or abuse toward sexual minority people in services and lack of expertise or ‘culturally competent’ provision for their specific addiction problems. Facilitators included affirming, non-judgemental staff attitudes and sexual minority-specific treatment or outreach services. Patient-related barriers included ambivalence around drug/alcohol use and a fear of stigma (e.g. around sexualised drug use). Facilitators included signposting to services via community networks or peer advocates, and allowing patients to set their own treatment goals.

Although barriers and facilitators vary across global contexts and time periods, both qualitative and quantitative research highlighted similar key issues. Implementing practical changes to address these may improve sexual minority people’s access to addiction services, reducing the burden of addiction-related health inequity for this community.

Recent studies suggest an association between sympathies for violent protest and terrorism, and major depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric disorders in subgroups of radicalised people and in lone-actor terrorists.

The aim of this study is to identify and analyse all documented terrorist attacks in the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), where the motive for terrorism is questioned due to suspected mental health issues.

This study is based on a semi-quantitative, epidemiological analysis of all incidents from 1970 to the first half of 2021, as reported in the GTD. Incidents in which the act of terrorism was questionable because of alleged mental illness were included. Temporal factors, location, target type, attack and weapon type, perpetrator type and number of casualties were collated.

One hundred and two incidents in the period 1970–2020 and five incidents in 2021 were studied. The majority occurred in the period 2011–2020. The incidents resulted in a total of 99 fatal and 217 non-fatal injuries. Twenty-nine perpetrators died during the attacks.

The majority of the attacks occurred in the USA, followed by France and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Armed assaults were the most frequently identified attack type (67%).

In North America, the incidence was as high as 8.2 and 3.4% of the total number of terrorist attacks in the periods 2001–2010 and 2021, respectively. Most of the perpetrators acted as lone actors. Five assailants were detained in a psychiatric facility after the judicial probe, 18 were convicted and 9 had not been sentenced.

The possible relation between terrorism and mental illness or addiction is a recent phenomenon in the GTD. The prototypical case consists of a lone actor suffering from an assumed mental illness committing an armed assault. Only a minority of perpetrators were unable to stand trial in this series.

Substance use has consistently been linked with cognitive impairments. However, most previous studies have focused on highly selective samples of individuals with chronic substance use disorders and have typically relied solely on self-reports. The associations between recreational use patterns of single or multiple substances and cognitive functioning in representative samples remain unclear.

We measured over 100 substances and their metabolites over the past 3 months in 850 young adults (48.6% female, Mage = 24.4) from a community-based cohort, using quantitative hair analysis. We assessed sustained attention, working memory, declarative memory, and a total cognitive performance index using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. We regressed cognition on hair substance concentrations, adjusting for sex, household socioeconomic status, migration background, education, gaming experience, and self-reported daily tobacco and alcohol use.

In their hair samples, 386 (45.5%) participants tested positive for at least one psychotropic substance other than alcohol and nicotine. Higher hair concentrations of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Cohen’s d = 0.40) and codeine (d = 0.22) were associated with lower sustained attention; higher concentrations of ketamine (d = 0.59) with worse declarative memory. Higher hair concentrations of cocaine and a higher polysubstance use severity index (PSUSI) were associated with both reduced attention (cocaine: d = 0.21; PSUSI: d = 0.30) and declarative memory (cocaine: d = 0.20; PSUSI: d = 0.29).

In this community sample of young adults, substance use was highly prevalent and associated with reduced cognitive performance, with small-to-moderate effect sizes. Cognitive consequences of recreational substance use may have been previously underestimated.

Cortical thickness reductions associated with chronic methamphetamine use exhibit a non-uniform spatial distribution across brain regions. A potential neurobiological mechanism underlying for this heterogeneous pattern may involve the structural and functional organization of cortical connectivity networks, which could mediate the propagation of neuroanatomical alterations. Here, we aimed to explore how brain network architecture constrains cortical thickness alterations and their clinical relevance.

The 3D-T1 images were acquired from 139 patients with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) and 119 sex- and age-matched healthy controls. We first characterized distributed cortical thinning patterns in patients with MUD, then evaluated the relationships between regional atrophy and (1) multimodal nodal centrality measures (structural, morphological, and functional) and (2) atrophy profiles of structural connected neighbors. Individual network-weighted cortical abnormality maps were used to identify distinct MUD biotypes and related to clinical features through k-means clustering and partial least squares regression.

Cortical thinning patterns demonstrated significant associations with nodal centrality across all modalities, as well as cortical thinning of connected neighbors revealing a network-dependent atrophy architecture. Fronto-temporal regions emerged as critical epicenters, showing both high nodal centrality and strong correlations with connected neighbors’ thinning severity. We found that the individual differences in network-weighted cortical abnormality corresponded to clinical symptom variability, and distinguished two MUD biotypes associated with drug use.

Our findings suggest that cortical thinning in MUD is influenced by the brain connectome architecture, providing a mechanistic framework for understanding individual variability in addiction progression.