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Alcohol cues increase cognitive impulsivity in individuals with alcoholism

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Abstract

Background

Individuals with alcoholism are characterized by both attentional bias for alcohol cues and prepotent response inhibition deficit. We tested the hypothesis that alcoholics exhibit greater cognitive disinhibition when the response to be suppressed is associated with alcohol-related information.

Methods

Forty recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism were compared with 40 healthy non-substance abusers on the “Alcohol-Shifting Task”, a variant of the go/no-go paradigm requiring a motor response to targets and no response to distracters. The aim was to test the ability of alcoholics to discriminate between alcohol-related and neutral words. Sometimes, the alcohol-related words were the targets for the “go” response, with neutral words as distracters, sometimes the reverse. Several shifts in target type occurred during the task.

Results

Alcoholics made significantly more commission errors (i.e., press a key when a distracter displayed) and more omission errors (i.e., not press a key when a target displayed) than controls. Moreover, the number of commission errors was greater in alcoholics when alcohol-related stimuli had to be detected.

Conclusions

These results demonstrate that alcoholics exhibit a basic prepotent response inhibition deficit, which is enhanced when the response to be suppressed is related to alcohol. We discuss clinical and theoretical implications of these findings.

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Acknowledgment

Thanks to Aline Ernster for her helpful assistance in collecting data.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinic of Addictions, C.H.U Brugmann, Free University of Brussels (ULB), Salle 72, 4, place Van Gehuchten, 1020, Brussels, Belgium

    Xavier Noël, Catherine Hanak & Paul Verbanck

  2. Cognitive Psychopathology and Neuropsychology Unit, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Martial Van der Linden

  3. Child and Adolescent Psychology Unit, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Mathieu d’Acremont

  4. Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Antoine Bechara

  5. Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Antoine Bechara

  6. Department of Neurology, Hôpital Universitaire des Enfants Reine Fabiola, Free University of Brussels (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

    Bernard Dan

Authors
  1. Xavier Noël
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  2. Martial Van der Linden
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  3. Mathieu d’Acremont
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  4. Antoine Bechara
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  5. Bernard Dan
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  6. Catherine Hanak
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  7. Paul Verbanck
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Correspondence to Xavier Noël.

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Noël, X., Van der Linden, M., d’Acremont, M. et al. Alcohol cues increase cognitive impulsivity in individuals with alcoholism. Psychopharmacology 192, 291–298 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-006-0695-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-006-0695-6

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