Alcohol-Related Context Modulates Performance of Social Drinkers in a Visual Go/No-Go Task: A Preliminary Assessment of Event-Related Potentials

Abstract

BackgroundIncreased alcohol cue-reactivity and altered inhibitory processing have been reported in heavy social drinkers and alcohol-dependent patients, and are associated with relapse. In social drinkers, these two processes have been usually studied separately by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) during rapid picture presentation. The aim of our study was to confront social drinkers to a task triggering high alcohol cue-reactivity, to verify whether it specifically altered inhibitory performance, by using long-lasting background picture presentation.MethodsERP were recorded during visual Go/No-Go tasks performed by social drinkers, in which a frequent Go signal (letter “M”), and a rare No-Go signal (letter “W”) were superimposed on three different types of background pictures: neutral (black background), alcohol-related and non alcohol-related.ResultsOur data suggested that heavy social drinkers made more commission errors than light drinkers, but only in the alcohol-related context. Neurophysiologically, this was reflected by a delayed No-Go P3 component.ConclusionsElevated alcohol cue-reactivity may lead to poorer inhibitory performance in heavy social drinkers, and may be considered as an important vulnerability factor in developing alcohol misuse. Prevention programs should be designed to decrease the high arousal of alcohol stimuli and strengthen cognitive control in young, at-risk individuals.

Alcohol abuse and ERP components in Go/No-go tasks using alcohol-related stimuli: Impact of alcohol avoidance

“…For the letter Go/No-go task, the percentage of FA on No-go trials and the average reaction times (RT) on Go trials of the two groups (heavy and light drinkers) were analyzed with Student's t-test. N200 and P300 amplitudes and latencies were analyzed with four separate three-way mixed ANOVAs including Group (heavy vs. light drinkers), Trial type (Go and No-go) and Electrodes (F3-Fz-F4-C3-Cz-C4-Pz; Oddy and Barry, 2009;Petit et al, 2012a) as factors, with Trial type and Electrode as within-subject variables.…”

“…The average percentage of FA on No-go trials and the average RT on Go trials were analyzed with three-way mixed ANOVAs including Stimulus type (alcohol-related vs. neutral picture) as within subject factor and Group (heavy vs. light drinker) and Alcohol avoidance (high alcohol avoiders and low alcohol) as between subject factors. Five-way mixed ANOVAs with Group (heavy vs. light drinkers), Alcohol avoidance (high alcohol vs. low alcohol avoiders), Stimulus type (alcohol-related vs. neutral picture), Trial type (Go and No-go), and Electrode (F3-Fz-F4-C3-Cz-C4-Pz; Oddy and Barry, 2009;Petit et al, 2012a) were conducted separately with N200 and P300 amplitudes and latencies as dependent variables.…”

“…As the electrode effect was not the main focus of this study, only Group × Electrode interactions are reported. Pearson's correlations were used to test the hypothesis that N200 and P300 amplitudes and latencies (mean amplitudes averaged across seven recorded fronto-central scalp sites: F3, Fz, F4, C3, Cz, C4 and Pz) in No-go trials for alcohol-related cues (Petit et al, 2012a) are associated with the percentage of FAs to alcohol-related cues, AUDIT scores, BIS-11 scores and the obsessed/ compelled craving for alcohol. All statistical analyses were conducted with Statistica (version 10) for Windows.…”

“…We first hypothesized that heavy drinkers, by comparison to light drinkers, would exhibit inhibition deficits revealed by more FA during No-go trials involving letters as well as reduced N200 and P300 amplitudes Montgomery et al, 2013;Pandey et al, 2012). Second, in the modified Go/No-go task, we expected reduced inhibition performances towards alcohol-related cues (Noël et al, 2007;Petit et al, 2012a) combined with delayed P300 latencies (Petit et al, 2012a) in heavy drinkers as compared to light drinkers. Third, we assumed that heavy drinkers would display larger P300 amplitudes than light drinkers to alcohol-related pictures, reflecting higher emotional salience of these stimuli for alcohol abusers (Herrmann et al, 2001).…”

“…However, several ERP studies revealed early cerebral dysfunctions related to alcohol consumption before any detectable behavioral impairment in social drinkers (Bijl et al, 2005;Nichols and Martin, 1996;Oddy and Barry, 2009), and in binge drinkers (López-Caneda et al, 2013Maurage et al, 2009Maurage et al, , 2012Watson et al, 2014). To our knowledge, only one electrophysiological study assessed the inhibition abilities toward alcohol-related information (Petit et al, 2012a). The authors used a letter Go/No-go task in which the letters were superimposed on a background picture displaying three different emotional contexts (neutral, alcohol-related, and non-alcohol-related) among heavy and light drinkers.…”