The quantification of the effect of substance abuse on brain behavior based on electroencephalogram signals: A comprehensive review

Substance abuse has become a significant health problem for individuals and society. This study aimed to investigate the effects of substance abuse on brain waves.

Articles used were systematically searched in Google Scholar, Scopus, Thomson Reuters, ScienceDirect, PubMed, and IEEE databases. The result of this search was 420 articles. Keywords [Substance-Related Disorders MESH) AND (EEG MESH)], ["substance-related disorder" AND "EEG"], ["drug dependence" AND "EEG"], ["Substance abuse" AND "EEG"], ["Opioid" AND "EEG"], ["Cannabis" AND "EEG"] and ["Methamphetamine" AND "EEG"] were used for the search. After removing irrelevant and duplicate articles, we included 22 full-text articles in the study.

The articles examined the effects of substance abuse on brain waves with three approaches. The first approach is the event-related potentials technique. The second approach is to investigate the functional connections between different brain parts. The third approach analyzes EEG signals from various channels to select biomarkers to detect substance abuse.

According to the present findings, it is suggested that policymakers and community health managers increase public awareness of the harms of substance abuse. Researchers in health should also discover and develop new diagnostic methods and treatment strategies according to the damage caused to the brain of substance abusers.