Objective: Addicted people are characterized by enhanced attention for drug cues leading to drug use. However, there is little research on the component processes of attention in individuals with alcoholism. Here, we examine 2 distinct components of attention in abstinent alcohol-dependent individuals and social drinkers of alcohol, that is to say, the initial orienting to alcohol-related cues, and the maintenance of attention to them.Method: The present study used an ''alcohol'' version of the visual probe detection task with alcohol-related or neutral pictures being presented briefly (i.e., 50 ms), to assess initial orienting, or longer (i.e., 500 and 1,250 ms), to assess the maintenance of attention.Results: Only alcoholic patients were faster in detecting a probe displayed immediately after pictures related to alcohol presented for 50 ms than in detecting the same probe replacing nonalcohol-related pictures. However, when pictures were presented for 500 ms, only social alcohol drinkers were faster in detecting the probe replacing alcohol scenes. At a stimulus of 1,250 ms duration, no group showed attentional bias toward alcohol cues. In addition, the severity of alcoholism measured by the total number of prior detoxification treatments was positively correlated with the attentional bias (or ''attraction'') for alcohol pictures presented for 50 ms.Conclusions: These results show that, subsequent to initial visual orienting to alcohol-related cues, abstinent patients' attention was disengaged from these stimuli, thus suggesting a visual approachdisengagement attentional pattern. The influence of these findings on relapse was discussed.

Chronic alcohol consumption seems to be associated with severe executive function deficits, which are still present after a protracted period of alcohol abstinence. These data support the idea that the cognitive deficits in recently detoxified sober alcoholic subjects are due, at least partly, to frontal lobe dysfunctioning.

Introduction

Background Individuals with alcoholism are characterized by both attentional bias for alcohol cues and prepotent response inhibition deficit. We tested the hypothesis that alcoholics exhibit greater cognitive disinhibition when the response to be suppressed is associated with alcohol-related information. Methods Forty recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism were compared with 40 healthy non-substance abusers on the "Alcohol-Shifting Task", a variant of the go/no-go paradigm requiring a motor response to targets and no response to distracters. The aim was to test the ability of alcoholics to discriminate between alcohol-related and neutral words. Sometimes, the alcohol-related words were the targets for the "go" response, with neutral words as distracters, sometimes the reverse. Several shifts in target type occurred during the task. Results Alcoholics made significantly more commission errors (i.e., press a key when a distracter displayed) and more omission errors (i.e., not press a key when a target displayed) than controls. Moreover, the number of commission errors was greater in alcoholics when alcoholrelated stimuli had to be detected. Conclusions These results demonstrate that alcoholics exhibit a basic prepotent response inhibition deficit, which is enhanced when the response to be suppressed is related to alcohol. We discuss clinical and theoretical implications of these findings.

Inhibition and working memory deficits, associated with low levels of CBF in the medial frontal gyrus, are related to the difficulty of maintaining short-term abstinence from alcohol.