Clinical effectiveness of attentional bias modification training in abstinent alcoholic patients

Attentional bias modification based on visual probe task: methodological issues, results and clinical relevance

“…10 In the other study, AB in the avoid group decreased when compared with the control group at SOA 500 ms, but not at 200 ms, and generalized to new stimuli, but did not correlate with craving. 53 The latter had the largest number of trials in this category, and although the AB did not correlate with craving, the participants in the avoid group took longer to relapse and were discharged earlier than those in the control group.…”

“…However, other possible explanation may be the fact that ABM, as an implicit training strategy, 53,55 might have led to some late effects. A recent study 55 showed long-term effectiveness of ABM in a clinical population of smokers, as a positive AB at baseline became immediately negative (avoidance pattern) in the first post-training assessment, remained negative 6 months later and was progressively attenuated, reaching a near-zero level (no AB) in the last assessment 1 year after training.…”

“…51 In contrast, of the five studies that compared avoid (to drug) and control groups, only one found no differences between groups. 52 The two studies about alcohol use 10,53 found differences between groups in the post-test. In one of all participants showed an attentional bias toward unhealthy food cues at baseline.…”

“…62,65 Similar encouraging results were found in two other recent studies. 63,64 In the first, groups were trained either to attend to healthy food or to attend to unhealthy food, and 33 Avoid (-)/control Yes No Amir et al 6 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Hazen et al 26 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Heeren et al 27 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes See et al 28 Avoid (-)/control Yes Yes Heeren et al 29 Avoid (-)/control Yes No MacLeod et al 7 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Browning et al 19 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes MacLeod et al 34 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Van Bockstaele et al 35 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes No Van Bockstaele et al 36 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes No Eldar et al 37 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Partly No O'Toole et al 38 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Partly No Heeren et al 39 Attend (-)/control Yes Yes Krebs et al 40 Attend (-)/control Yes Yes Hayes et al 41 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Li et al 42 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Taylor et al 43 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Wadlinger et al 44 Attend (+)/control Yes Yes Cowart et al 46 Avoid (-) Not applicable Not applicable Amir et al 45 Avoid (-) Yes Yes Brosan et al 47 Avoid (-) Yes Yes Heeren et al 48 Avoid (-)/attend (+)/control Yes Yes Klumpp et al 49 Avoid (-)/attend (+)/control No No Boettcher et al 50 Attend ( 51 Avoid (-)/attend (+) Yes Yes Schoenmakers et al 10 Avoid (-)/control Yes No Schoenmakers et al 53 Avoid (-)/control Yes Partly Kerst et al 54 Avoid (-)/control Yes Partly Lopes et al 55 Avoid (-)/control Yes No McHugh et al 52 Avoid (-)/control No No Fie...…”

“…In contrast, the analysis of studies in the drug addiction category revealed that the highest number of training sessions led to the most successful results and clinical utility. 53 The use of five ABM training sessions in a group of patients with alcohol dependence was effective and affected treatment progression, as patients in the avoid group took longer to relapse and were discharged before patients in the control group. Similarly, the study with smokers trying to quit 55 …”