Training alcohol-related attentional biases in alcohol-dependence. What are the neurocognitive effects?

Training should affect attentional control processes specifically associated with alcohol-related stimuli. As a result, training as an additional treatment on top of CBT should reduce biases to alcohol-associated stimuli which have been linked with craving a relapse propensity. We expect that those individuals allocated to the training group should show reduced biases, also reflected as neuronal changes in the control of attention. Additionally the training should facilitate abstinence.

Participants register on the trial
Undergo the baseline assessment session at Time point 1
Over the next 6 time-points, they undergo online training
Time point 8 will be the post-training assessment session
One month after Time point 8, they will will in a questionnaire with information about the drinking behaviour during the month after the training.

Attentional bias modification training or active placebo will be given at random and double blind to a group of alcohol dependent outpatients from clinics recruited in and around Amsterdam.

The real intervention is designed to train a person's ability to actively allocated attention to images of non-alcohol-containing beverages, while ignoring images of alcohol-containing drinks. thus the real training will involve training processes of attentional control in the presence of alcohol-associated images. On the other hand, the active placebo training condition will involve training attentional control processes more generally and not specific to alcohol-associated images.

All participants will receive a month of training, which is equivalent to 6 training sessions in total conducted over the internet.