The magnitude of drug attentional bias is specific to substance use disorder.

Abstract

The visual probe task with eye tracking is a sensitive measure of cocaine and alcohol cue attentional bias. Despite the high comorbidity between cocaine and alcohol dependence, attentional bias studies have examined the influence of cocaine and alcohol-related cues separately. The aim of this experiment was to directly compare the magnitude of cocaine and alcohol cue attentional bias in individuals dependent on cocaine or cocaine and alcohol. Individuals who met criteria for cocaine dependence (n=20) or both cocaine and alcohol dependence (n=20) completed a visual probe task with eye tracking. Cocaine-dependent participants displayed an attentional bias towards cocaine, but not alcohol. In contrast, cocaine-alcohol dependent participants displayed an attentional bias to both cocaine and alcohol, and the magnitude of these biases did not differ. The magnitude of cocaine cue attentional bias, however, was significantly smaller in the cocaine-alcohol dependent group compared to the cocaine-dependent group. These results suggest that fixation time during the visual probe task is sensitive to clinically relevant differences in substance use disorders. The incentive value of cocaine-related cues, however, may differ for individuals who are also dependent on alcohol.

Attentional bias in problematic drinkers with and without mild to borderline intellectual disability

“…Unexpectedly, current levels of craving were not associated with the strength of the (potential) attentional bias in our study. Other variables that could influence the results include poly‐substance use (Marks et al , ), co‐morbid psychiatric disorders and the use of prescribed, psychotropic medication (Sinclair et al , ). For example, Marks et al () have found that poly‐substance use can decrease the strength of the attentional bias for substance‐related stimuli and Sinclair et al () found that co‐morbid psychiatric disorders can influence the RT of participants, thereby influencing the results in an indirect way.…”

Alcohol Administration Increases Cocaine Craving But Not Cocaine Cue Attentional Bias

“…Relatedly, it is unknown how alcohol administration might influence attentional bias in individuals dependent upon both cocaine and alcohol. Previous research suggests that cocaine and alcohol‐dependent individuals attend to cocaine‐related images differently than cocaine‐only dependent individuals (Marks et al., ).…”

N -Acetylcysteine reduces cocaine-cue attentional bias and differentially alters cocaine self-administration based on dosing order

“…Slower response times to probes that replace neutral images, relative to when the probe replaces a cocaine-related image, are interpreted as the participant’s attention being focused on the cocaine image. An attentional bias score was calculated from response time (RT) data in the visual-probe task as described previously (i.e., RT Cocaine – RT Neutral ; Marks et al, 2015) such that negative scores would suggest a cocaine-cue attentional bias. The attentional bias score served as the primary outcome measure for data analysis.…”