We recruited 44 individuals (95% male) with a chronic history of cocaine use, meeting the DSM-IV-TR criteria for cocaine dependence, and 44 matched healthy control volunteers (93% male) without a history of drug or alcohol dependence. The diagnosis of cocaine dependence was ascertained using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, and these individuals are subsequently referred to as cocaine use disorder (CUD). None of the control participants had ever met DSM-IV-TR criteria for substance dependence; for further details see Supplementary Material. All participants provided written informed consent before they underwent a medical review and psychiatric screening. Exclusion criteria included major medical or neurological illness, lifetime history of a psychotic disorder, history of a traumatic head injury, or any contra-indications to MR-scanning. Dietary iron intake was calculated from the Food Frequency Questionnaire (http://www.srl.cam.ac.uk/epic/nutmethod/FFQ.shtml). Diet-related variations in iron absorption were estimated using the algorithms developed by Hallberg and Hulthen.33 (link) All participants provided blood samples for the analysis of iron proteins in serum (that is, ferritin, iron, transferrin), hepcidin-25, acute inflammation (that is, C-reactive protein (CRP)) and haematological status. This study was approved by the National Research Ethics Committee (12/EE/0519; PI: KDE).
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