Acute alcohol impairs human goal-directed action

Model-Based and Model-Free Decisions in Alcohol Dependence

“…Evidence for alcohol-induced disruption of goal-directed behavior comes from demonstrations of devaluation insensitivity after chronic alcohol intake in rodents [4] and humans revealing disruption of goal-directed behavior [24] and inhibitory top-down control [74] after acute alcohol administration. As it has been shown that impairments in cognitive control serve as a vulnerability marker for an increased risk for substance dependence [65,75,76,77], further research should use longitudinal designs in order to answer this chicken-and-egg question.…”

“…Moreover, it is yet unclear how different paradigms that have been designed to investigate dual-control mechanisms in humans indeed do examine a common psychological and neurobiological construct. Thus, further research should investigate within-subject correlations between performance in different dual-control tasks, such as paradigms that devalued outcomes by satiation [24,61,71] or by omission [72] and sequential learning tasks such as the 2-step task [31] or even more complex Marcov decision tasks [73]. …”

“…A satiety devaluation paradigm did not reveal evidence of habitual responding for either cigarettes or chocolate in smokers, suggesting that not all responses for drug-related stimuli are necessarily habitual in drug users [22]. Interestingly, however, alcohol expectancy [23] and acute alcohol administration [24] did reduce the effect of satiety devaluation, suggesting that alcohol can specifically impair goal-directed decisions. Indeed, the goal-directed system is likely to depend on the kind of cognitive processes that are known to be impaired by alcohol [25,26].…”

Computer-aided diagnosis of alcoholism-related EEG signals

“…It is also associated with dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system (ANS) [21]. Even a low dose (0.2-0.4 g/kg) of alcohol consumption has acute impact on memory, behavior, and cognition [22][23][24]. Alcohol and stress hormones elicit neuroadaptive changes in the prefrontal cortex [25,26].…”

The effects of stereotype threat and contextual cues on alcohol users' inhibitory control

“…The link between alcohol consumption and cue reactivity has been attributed to the effects of alcohol on executive functioning, specifically diminished inhibitory control (Adams, Ataya, Attwood, & Munafò, 2013). This body of work suggests that alcohol-related cues can function as a prime that decreases individuals' ability to inhibit a dominant response by suppressing behavioral impulses (Hogarth et al, 2012). Consistent with this prediction, Kreusch et al (2013) found that both problem and non-problem drinkers made significantly more commission errors (i.e., false alarms) and were quicker to respond to alcohol-related stimuli compared to neutral stimuli in a Cued Go/No-Go Association Task.…”