Attentional bias for nondrug reward is magnified in addiction.

Abstract

Attentional biases for drug-related stimuli play a prominent role in addiction, predicting treatment outcome. Attentional biases also develop for stimuli that have been paired with non-drug reward in adults without a history of addiction, the magnitude of which is predicted by visual working memory capacity and impulsiveness. We tested the hypothesis that addiction is associated with an increased attentional bias for non-drug (monetary) reward relative to that of healthy controls, and that this bias is related to working memory impairments and increased impulsiveness. Seventeen patients receiving methadone maintenance treatment for opioid dependence and seventeen healthy controls participated. Impulsiveness was measured using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), visual working memory capacity was measured as the ability to recognize briefly presented color stimuli, and attentional bias was measured as the magnitude of response time slowing caused by irrelevant but previously reward-associated distractors in a visual search task. The results showed that attention was biased toward the distractors across all participants, replicating previous findings. Importantly, this bias was significantly greater in the patients than in the controls and was negatively correlated with visual working memory capacity. Patients were also significantly more impulsive than controls as a group. Our findings demonstrate that patients in treatment for addiction experience greater difficulty ignoring stimuli associated with non-drug reward. This non-specific reward-related bias could mediate the distracting quality of drug-related stimuli previously observed in addiction.

Interrelationship of Opioid Dependence, Impaired Impulse Control, and Depressive Symptoms: An Open-Label Cross-Sectional Study of Patients in Maintenance Therapy

“…This result is in line with former research: Anderson et al [37, 38] and Nielsen et al [11] compared BIS-11 scores in abstinent OD patients, patients enrolled in maintenance therapy, and healthy controls and found significantly higher impulsivity in OD patients. However, the difference between abstinent and maintained patients was not significant.…”

Reward Anticipation Is Differentially Modulated by Varenicline and Nicotine in Smokers

“…Moreover, the attentional biasing effects of reward are not limited to drugrelated stimuli. In a cohort of opiate-addicted participants, monetary reward was seen to bias attentional processing (Anderson et al, 2013). Together, these findings suggest that ACC governs attentional control generally under the influence of reward-related cues.…”

How motivation and reward learning modulate selective attention

“…Finally, Della Libera and Chelazzi (2009) demonstrated not only that attentional processes are influenced by rewards but also that this effect is long-lasting, occurring several days after the end of the learning phase and when rewards are no longer at stake. These data open interesting perspectives for rehabilitation of patients with attention disorders (see Lucas et al, 2013;Olgiati et al, 2016) or abnormal reward-seeking behaviors (see Anderson et al, 2013a).…”

“…Hickey and collaborators (2010b) reported, for instance, that healthy subjects with reward-seeking personalities, assessed by the BIS/BAS inventory, showed a larger modulation by reward of an intertrial priming effect. Using a reward association paradigm, Anderson et al (2013a) demonstrated that the attentional capture by previously high-rewarded stimuli in a subsequent visual search task was greater in patients receiving methadone maintenance treatment for opioid dependence. This effect was also shown in patients with HIV, and correlated with prior HIV-related risk-taking behavior.…”