Brain Activation Elicited by Affectively Positive Stimuli Is Associated With a Lower Risk of Relapse in Detoxified Alcoholic Subjects

Abstract

In this study, brain activation elicited by briefly presented alcohol-associated stimuli was not associated with the prospective risk of relapse. Unexpectedly, alcoholic subjects displayed increased limbic brain activation during the presentation of affectively positive but not negative stimuli, which may reflect a protective factor in detoxified alcoholic subjects.

Why We Like to Drink: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of the Rewarding and Anxiolytic Effects of Alcohol

“…Previous studies have demonstrated differences between controls and alcohol-dependent patients (Heinz et al, 2007;Salloum et al, 2007), and between nonabusing adults with and without a family history of alcoholism (Glahn et al, 2007), in brain regions involved in the processing of emotional stimuli. None of these studies, however, has examined differences among these groups in the effects of acute alcohol administration.…”

Abstinence reverses EEG-indexed attention bias between drug-related and pleasant stimuli in cocaine-addicted individuals

“…Moreover, prospective neuroimaging studies modelling relapse vulnerability and future drug use have shown that reduced attention toward drug-related cues 11,12,[28][29][30] and increased attention toward non-drug-related reinforcers [31][32][33] predicted longer abstinence durations in individuals with substance use disorders. Although these studies are highly informative, many have been limited to the cross-sectional Background: Increased attention bias toward drug-related cues over non-drug-related intrinsically pleasant reinforcers is a hallmark of drug addiction.…”

“…24 Importantly, cross-sectional studies have shown that the LPP amplitude to drug-related cues is decreased 25,26 while that to non-drug-related cues is increased 19,27 after a period of reduced drug use (3 d to about 1 yr). Moreover, prospective neuroimaging studies modelling relapse vulnerability and future drug use have shown that reduced attention toward drug-related cues 11,12,[28][29][30] and increased attention toward non-drug-related reinforcers [31][32][33] predicted longer abstinence durations in individuals with substance use disorders. Although these studies are highly informative, many have been limited to the cross-sectional effects of shorter-term 19 or longer-term abstinence 25,31 relying mostly on self-reported follow-up assessments.…”

“…Moreover, prospective neuroimaging studies modelling relapse vulnerability and future drug use have shown that reduced attention toward drug-related cues 11,12,[28][29][30] and increased attention toward non-drug-related reinforcers [31][32][33] predicted longer abstinence durations in individuals with substance use disorders. Although these studies are highly informative, many have been limited to the cross-sectional effects of shorter-term 19 or longer-term abstinence 25,31 relying mostly on self-reported follow-up assessments. 12,[28][29][30]32,33 An exception is a longitudinal behavioural study that reported reduced attention bias to drug-related cues (assessed via an emotional Stroop task) in heroin-addicted individuals after 3 weeks of heroin abstinence.…”

Neurobiology of Substance-Related Addiction: Findings of Neuroimaging

“…Trying to understand these diverging findings, one has to take into account that all studies used different stimuli for craving induction: alcohol-related words (Tapert et al, 2004), alcohol-related pictures with (Myrick et al, 2004) or without (Grüsser et al, 2004) a sip of alcohol ("priming dose"). Furthermore, time point of examination differed from patients being not detoxified (Myrick et al, 2004) to detoxified patients in an inpatient treatment program (Braus et al, 2001;Grüsser et al, 2004;Heinz et al, 2004b;Heinz et al, 2007;Wrase et al, 2002;Wrase et al, 2007).…”