Mātai Medical Research Institute senior research fellow and co-principal investigator Maryam Tayebi and her team are conducting a national study to learn how treatment can repair damage from long-term methamphetamine use.
Gisborne-based Mātai Medical Research Institute is leading a national study to learn how treatment can repair damage from long-term use of methamphetamine.
Meth addiction costs New Zealand at least $1.5 billion annually in social harm and its use is at record high, with Tairāwhiti among the highest levels.
Meth harms memory, attention, decision-making and self-control by damaging key brain regions, a statement from Mātai said. Standard MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) often detects volume loss only once damage is irreversible.
The study Mātai is doing, alongside local and national collaborators, uses advanced imaging to track brain networks over time and distinguish injuries that may recover from those that are permanent - evidence that could guide better interventions.
Heart damage is the second-leading cause of death among meth users.
“While many people may be aware that methamphetamine impacts the brain, most people who use meth long-term end up dying of heart related conditions,” co-investigator associate professor Miriam Scadeng (University of Auckland) said.
“Meth use accelerates the ‘ageing process’ of blood vessels due to inflammation, which causes a premature build-up of plaque, resulting in the thickening and hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), and users die young from heart attacks and arrhythmias.”
Mātai senior clinical fellow and neuropsychiatrist Dr Gil Newburn said similar issues also occur in blood vessels in the brain.
Backed by the Fred Lewis Foundation, Neurological Foundation and the Hugh Green Foundation, the programme integrates outreach, cultural healing, advanced imaging, individual and group support, pharmacological treatment, neuropsychiatric care, and high school prevention education.
Newburn said: “There is no one health or social discipline that can provide all the answers, and that this requires a dedicated multidisciplinary approach to investigation and management.
“This world-first programme is focused on understanding who is most likely to recover and why, with the ultimate goal of tailoring treatment to each person’s brain, demographics, history and health conditions.”
Participants in this study will receive neuropsychiatric treatment combined with cultural healing as part of their abstinence journey.
They will also undergo MRI scans of the brain and heart, and cognitive testing.
Newburn said finding an effective treatment for addiction was a major challenge because of the massive heterogeneity in each individual’s history, including factors such as length and frequency of usage, age of onset, epigenetics, mental health, background, socio-economic level, lifestyle and co-existing medical conditions.
“Through this study, we aim to collect as many relevant variables as possible to help piece together each individual’s story more completely,” co-principal investigator Maryam Tayebi said.
“With these data we will explore how AI tools might be used to guide the development of personalised treatment approaches that could, in the future, help improve the success of abstinence for individuals with meth addiction.”
Newburn said: “Ultimately, we would like to use our findings beyond immediate clinical applications that treat one person at a time to develop a framework of tools that will eventually help thousands nationally and internationally.”
The study builds on Mātai’s earlier recovery pilot and is broadening to include neurological conditions, childhood trauma, socio-economic status, clinical history and, subject to funding, genetics.
“Advanced MRI of the brain and heart is paired with lived-experience measures to enable more personalised abstinence strategies and to understand how stressors further affect brain function,” the Mātai release said.
“Integrating Western paradigms with Mātauranga Māori is a promising way to address methamphetamine addiction, pairing scientific rigour with cultural grounding.”
Mātai senior research associate Wendy Mohi drives community outreach, walking alongside whaiora through a 12-month abstinence journey and ensuring research is culturally relevant and accessible.
This hīkoi combines tikanga Māori with advanced MRI to study brain and heart effects and to monitor recovery.
With Mātai and local wrap-around services, she partners with Turanga Health and the Community Action on Youth and Drugs (CAYAD) programme to deliver school-based drug and alcohol education in Tairāwhiti.
“Her Hinga Whitu Ngā Wa Tu Waru programme recently achieved 100% abstinence among eight local whaiora, demonstrating how MRI neuroimaging, whānau support, kanohi-ki-te-kanohi engagement and culturally sensitive data practices can work together.
“Preliminary findings show clear brain structure differences between people struggling with meth addiction and healthy controls, with early signs that some functions can rebound, but only with sustained abstinence.”
Built with strong community input in Tairāwhiti, the team hope to deliver more effective, science-backed approaches that can be scaled nationally and, over time, internationally.
“The research being done at Mātai is genuinely world-class,” Neurological Foundation head of research Dr Sarah Schonberger said.
“When at least one in three Kiwis will be affected by a neurological condition in their lifetime, the work of researchers like these is crucial to advancing healthcare and improving people’s quality of life.
“We are so grateful that our generous supporters are able to make a real difference by helping fund bold, brilliant New Zealand research like this, which holds so much promise for important breakthroughs.”