Respuestas autonómicas reducidas ante estímulos emocionales en el alcoholismo: la relevancia de la impulsividad

Abstract

Alcohol dependence is associated with abnormalities in the processing of emotional signals and impulsive alcohol-seeking behaviours, and these alterations compromise the effectiveness of treatment approaches. However, there is a lack of studies linking the experience of emotions to everyday motivationally relevant stimuli in alcohol-dependent individuals using both autonomic and self-report measures. We analysed heart rate (HR), skin conductance (SC) and subjective emotional reactivity to everyday affective stimuli in alcohol-dependent individuals, and their associations with impulsivity and degree of alcohol consumption. SC and HR were continuously monitored in 28 alcohol-dependent individuals and in 31 non-alcohol healthy controls during passive viewing of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral emotional pictures. Participants assessed the pictures for valence, arousal, and dominance and completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Alcohol-dependent individuals showed reduced HR and SC reactivity to both positive and negative emotional stimuli. In the case of SC, this blunted response was associated with impulsivity. Furthermore, alcohol-dependents displayed decoupled physiological and subjective responses, with blunted autonomic responses and normal subjective reports regarding emotional stimuli. Our findings indicate that alcohol-dependent individuals failed to use emotional autonomic feedback in response to natural, emotionally relevant stimuli, and provide initial evidence of the contribution of impulsivity to emotional processing deficits in this population. These results are in keeping with the proposed key role played by emotional experience and impulsivity in substance abuse.

Funcionamiento cognitivo después de seis meses de seguimiento en una muestra de pacientes ambulatorios con trastorno por uso de alcohol

“…Muchos estudios han establecido una asociación entre los trastornos por c ons umo de su stanc ias, incluido el alcohol, y la impulsividad (Carmona-Perera et al, 2019;Körner, Schmidt y Soyka, 2015;Leeman, Hoff, Krishnan-Sarin, Patock-Peckham y Potenza, 2014;Patton et al, 1995;Verdejo-García, Rivas-Pérez, Vilar-López y Pérez-García, 2007). En este sentido, nuestro estudio anterior encontró el mismo resultado, mostrando mayor impulsividad en el grupo de pacientes que en el grupo de control.…”

Emotional comorbidities in drug addictions. Recount and thematic review

“…Affective comorbidities in addictions are very frequent, more than 65% in a Spanish study in which patients with mood, psychotic anxiety, ADHD and personality predominated [6]. Anxiety and depression are the rule in these people [7,8], anger is also very common [9,10]. The Unpleasant Affect factor declared by several authors and which consists of a significant group of negative emotions has the greatest weight in its association with the craving for consumption [11].…”

Profiles of patients with cocaine and alcohol use disorder based on cognitive domains and their relationship with relapse

“…However, implicit association tasks have also been used (Rooke, et al, 2008), in which drug-related signals precipitate cognitive mechanisms that generate automatic drug-related responses. Moreover, alterations in emotional processing have been evaluated through tasks such as the Ekman Face Test (Young et al, 2002) or the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang et al, 1997), which are sensitive to the motivational/attentive circuit, and have proven useful for predicting relapse in patients with opiate dependence (Lubman et al, 2009) and alcohol dependence (Heinz et al, 2007;Carmona-Perera et al, 2019).…”