Abstract
Attention bias modification (ABM) can decrease the selective visual attention paid to alcohol-related cues but has not been found to reliably reduce alcohol craving. Here, a cognitive intervention to decrease craving by increasing sense of control (Shamloo and Cox, 2014) was used as a complement. We investigated the effects of two such interventions administered singly or in combination. Participants were 41 binge drinkers (BDs) and 10 non-binge drinkers (NBDs). BDs received either ABM, sense of control training, both interventions, or no intervention, and were compared with NBDs who received no intervention. Groups were assessed on alcohol attention bias change including both reaction times and cue-elicited ERPs (visual dot-probe task), alcohol craving change, and alcohol consumption. BDs exhibited higher attention bias scores than NBDs. ABM had no effect on BDs’ behavioral or electrophysiological markers of attention bias. Sense of control training did not increase personal sense of control but protected against decreased task accuracy and against increased craving. BDs receiving the combined intervention consumed less alcohol in a bogus taste test than participants receiving no intervention. Taken together, the results suggest that ABM procedure may reduce alcohol consumption if combined with sense of control training.
Highlights
Recurrent binge drinking is a hazardous behavior (Babor et al, 2010) that attracts social, media, research, and policy concern (Measham, 2008)
The present study aimed to investigate whether a combined intervention to increase sense of control and decrease alcohol attention bias would be more effective than either intervention alone in reducing alcohol craving, alcohol attention bias, and alcohol consumption
We investigated in a population of at-risk binge drinkers (BDs) the effectiveness of attention bias modification (ABM) training, sense of control treatment, and their combination, on a variety of neurophysiological and subjective measures
Summary
Recurrent binge drinking is a hazardous behavior (Babor et al, 2010) that attracts social, media, research, and policy concern (Measham, 2008). A deficit relevant to the maintenance of a binge drinking pattern, and potential escalation to compulsive use, is attention bias for alcoholrelated cues. The attention bias modification (ABM) method typically uses visuospatial cueing paradigms and was Attention Bias and Binge Drinking originally used to identify attention biases for threatening stimuli which characterize emotional disorders such as anxiety (MacLeod et al, 1986). Some effects of ABM on retraining appetitive attention biases have been reported (Beard et al, 2012). Despite reports of promising effects on neurophysiological measures, such as cue-elicited event related potentials (ERPs), there is limited evidence that ABM can significantly reduce subjective experiences such as craving (Beard et al, 2012; Mogoase et al, 2014)
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