Long Term Suboxone™ Emotional Reactivity As Measured by Automatic Detection in Speech

Addictions to illicit drugs are among the nation’s most critical public health and societal problems. The current opioid prescription epidemic and the need for buprenorphine/naloxone (Suboxone®; SUBX) as an opioid maintenance substance, and its growing street diversion provided impetus to determine affective states (“true ground emotionality”) in long-term SUBX patients. Toward the goal of effective monitoring, we utilized emotion-detection in speech as a measure of “true” emotionality in 36 SUBX patients compared to 44 individuals from the general population (GP) and 33 members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Other less objective studies have investigated emotional reactivity of heroin, methadone and opioid abstinent patients. These studies indicate that current opioid users have abnormal emotional experience, characterized by heightened response to unpleasant stimuli and blunted response to pleasant stimuli. However, this is the first study to our knowledge to evaluate “true ground” emotionality in long-term buprenorphine/naloxone combination (Suboxone™). We found in long-term SUBX patients a significantly flat affect (p<0.01), and they had less self-awareness of being happy, sad, and anxious compared to both the GP and AA groups. We caution definitive interpretation of these seemingly important results until we compare the emotional reactivity of an opioid abstinent control using automatic detection in speech. These findings encourage continued research strategies in SUBX patients to target the specific brain regions responsible for relapse prevention of opioid addiction.