Decision making about alcohol use: The case for scientific convergence

Abstract

Research on cognitive processes related to the decision to drink alcohol has yielded assessment tools that predict drinking as well or better than any other predictor. Although largely overlapping in content, some of these tools have issued from different theoretical perspectives and consequently have been named to reflect separate cognitive constructs. This article describes a single theme that may be shared by what now appear to be separate constructs: anticipatory information processing. These anticipatory processes are reviewed at multiple levels of analysis, from neurobiology, to learning and memory, and finally to behavioral choice. Evidence supporting anticipatory processing as a causal influence on drinking also is reviewed, along with evidence that these ideas may be usefully applied to prevention/treatment efforts.

Exposure to male sexual scents (androstenone) influences women’s drinking.

“…In this way, alcohol use might be computationally processed as instrumental to reproductive success during this brief window of peak fertility. This theory-based reasoning is entirely consistent with recent expositions of expectancy as a complex anticipatory process undergirding motivation (Goldman & Reich, 2013; Reich & Goldman, 2015).…”

“…The motivational processes that drive alcohol consumption can be initiated by a variety of well-established environmental or internal cues (e.g., alcohol itself, explicit or implicit alcohol-related stimuli, particular individuals, times and places, days of the week, calendar events, and emotional states and moods; see Patrick & Schulenberg, 2014; Reich, Cummings, Greenbaum, Moltisanti, & Goldman, 2015; Reich & Goldman, 2015). We recently identified a heretofore unknown class of cues suggested by novel research on human sexual signaling.…”

Exposure to female fertility pheromones influences men’s drinking.

“…This study was designed to begin an investigation into this relationship. Our hypothesis that pheromone-cued males would demonstrate increased alcohol consumption was derived from expectancy theo-ries in a variety of behavioral domains (e.g., Huron, 2006), and in particular, recent elaborations of alcohol expectancy theory (Goldman & Reich, 2013;Reich & Goldman, 2015). This group of theories suggests that detection of sexual pheromones by men should activate associational networks that store information about the anticipated contingency between alcohol use and sexual expression-that is, that in the presence of sexual/fertility cues, alcohol use would increase the likelihood of sex-thereby increasing alcohol consumption.…”

Different Effects of Alcohol Exposure on Action and Outcome-Related Orbitofrontal Cortex Activity

“…Alcohol use disorder (AUD) can result in decision-making deficits that can persist into protracted abstinence. In those suffering from AUDs, these deficits are thought to contribute to habitual and compulsive alcohol-seeking, a persistent vulnerability to relapse, and decrements in daily cognitive function ( Stephens and Duka, 2008 ; Berre et al, 2012 ; Reich and Goldman, 2015 ; Le Berre et al, 2017 ; Sebold et al, 2017 ; Bickel et al, 2018 ). With reports of alcohol dependence-induced functional and structural alterations across the cortex ( Volkow et al, 1994 , 1997 ; Laakso et al, 2002 ; Cardenas et al, 2011 ; Durazzo et al, 2011 ; Beck et al, 2012 ; Sjoerds et al, 2013 ; Thayer et al, 2016 ), it is highly likely that a broad array of computations normally contributing to efficacious decision-making are also altered.…”