Abstract
RationaleCue avoidance training (CAT) reduces alcohol consumption in the laboratory. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie the effects of this intervention are poorly understood.ObjectivesThe present study investigated the effects of a single session of CAT on event-related and readiness potentials during preparation of approach and avoidance movements to alcohol cues.MethodsHeavy drinking young adults (N = 60) were randomly assigned to complete either CAT or control training. After training, we recorded participants’ event-related and motor readiness potentials as they were preparing to respond.ResultsIn the CAT group, N200 amplitude was higher when preparing to approach rather than avoid alcohol pictures. In the control group, N200 amplitudes did not differ for approach and avoidance to alcohol pictures. Regarding the late positive potential (LPP), in the CAT group, the negativity of this was blunted when preparing to avoid alcohol pictures relative to when preparing to avoid control pictures. In the control group, the negativity of the LPP was blunted when preparing to approach alcohol pictures relative to when preparing to approach control pictures. There were no effects on motor readiness potentials. Behavioural effects indicated short-lived effects of training on reaction times during the training block that did not persist when participants were given time to prepare their motor response before executing it during the EEG testing block.ConclusionsAfter a single session of CAT, the enhanced N200 when approaching alcohol cues may indicate the engagement of executive control to overcome the associations learned during training. These findings clarify the neural mechanisms that may underlie the effects of CAT on drinking behaviour.
Highlights
In alcohol consumers, alcohol-related cues evoke automatic approach tendencies, and these automatic tendencies are Chester, UK 3 Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK 4 Centre for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile 5 Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK thought to influence drinking behaviour
A number of studies have measured the strength of these tendencies via the approach avoidance task (AAT; Wiers et al 2009) and related tasks (Field et al 2008) and demonstrated that non-dependent heavy drinkers, compared to light drinkers, are faster to approach alcohol pictures rather than avoid them (Kersbergen et al 2015; Watson et al 2012)
Studies that employed cue exposure paradigms have demonstrated that the amplitude of the P300 and late positive potential (LPP) event-related potentials (ERPs) components are significantly enhanced in substance users, relative to non-users, during exposure to substance-related cues (standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.46 in Littel et al 2012), whereas the N200 has been linked to executive control deficits in substance users (Petit et al 2013; Smith et al 2014)
Summary
In alcohol-dependent patients, stronger automatic tendencies to approach alcohol are associated with activation in brain regions that underlie cue reactivity and craving (Schacht et al 2013) such as the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC, Ernst et al 2014; Wiers et al 2014). Automatic approach and avoidance tendencies are activated within milliseconds of perceiving a salient stimulus, which means that fMRI lacks the Psychopharmacology (2020) 237:1343–1358 temporal resolution to fully characterise the underlying brain mechanisms (Hajcak et al 2010). A more complete understanding of the brain mechanisms that underlie approach and avoidance tendencies, including their temporal resolution, can be achieved by investigating event-related potentials (ERPs), and motor readiness potentials (Colebatch 2007), using electroencephalography (EEG), as participants complete these computerised tasks. It is plausible that each of these ERP components is implicated in approach and avoidance tendencies that are evoked by substance-related cues
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