The effects of cognitive reappraisal on attentional bias and craving in alcohol dependence: an ERP study

Substance use disorders, including alcohol dependence, are characterized by
cognitive processing biases, such as automatically detecting and orienting
attention towards drug-related stimuli. These biases have been associated with
drug use and relapse after periods of abstinence and can be measured on the
electrophysiological level. Drug users compared to healthy controls display
more enhanced Event-Related Potentials (ERPs; i.e., P300 and Late Positive
Potential (LPP) amplitudes) in response to drug-cues than in response to
neutral cues, probably indicating facilitated and elaborated attentive
processing of drug-related material. However, it is unclear whether this
enhanced attentive processing as observed in alcohol-dependent patients is
implicit or explicit in nature. Furthermore, it is unknown whether
alcohol-dependent patients are hypersensitive to alcohol-related cues in
particular or motivationally significant cues in general.

There are some preliminary indications that processing biases can be influenced
by cognitive control strategies. Several studies demonstrate that it is
possible to retrain attentional biases in attentional retraining programs.
However, it is not known whether these processing biases can be intentionally
modulated. A recent study showed that in smokers craving for cigarettes could
be intentionally modulated by employing cognitive regulation strategies.
However, only subjective measures were used. Within the field of emotion
research it has been demonstrated that ERP techniques provide a powerful tool
to investigate the cognitive control that can be exerted upon the attentive
processing of emotional stimuli. Applying these techniques to the field of
substance use, it can be studied whether substance dependent individuals have
intentional control over their processing of substance-related stimuli.

Subproject 1: To investigate the neurophysiological correlates of implicit and
explicit selective attention to alcohol cues and emotional cues in
alcohol-dependent patients compared to healthy controls

Subproject 2: To investigate whether it is possible for alcohol-dependent
patients to reduce neural reactivity to alcohol-related cues using cognitive
regulation strategies

Participants will perform two tasks while their EEG is recorded. The first task
is an oddball task by which implicit and explicit selective attention can be
measured. The second task is a cognitive reappraisal task designed to examine
the possibility to reduce neural reactivity ro alcohol-related stimuli. Before
and in between tasks, participants will fill out several questionnaires.
30 alcohol patients will be comapred to 30 matched, healthy controls.
Participants have to appear at the lab in a sober condition.

EEG is known to be a non-invasive and safe method to observe task-related brain
activity, and therefore no risks are related to participation in the study.
Since participants have to sit relatively still, effort will be made to make
the test session as comfortable as possible (comfortable chair, pillows, breaks
between blocks of trials).