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Clinical correlates of attentional bias to drug cues associated with cocaine dependence
Author(s) -
Kennedy Ashley P.,
Gross Robin E.,
Ely Tim,
Drexler Karen P.G.,
Kilts Clinton D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the american journal on addictions
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.997
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-0391
pISSN - 1055-0496
DOI - 10.1111/j.1521-0391.2014.12134.x
Subject(s) - attentional bias , stroop effect , psychology , addiction , cocaine dependence , association (psychology) , clinical psychology , audiology , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , psychotherapist
Background and Objective Preoccupation (attentional bias) related to drug‐related stimuli has been consistently observed for drug‐dependent persons with several studies reporting an association of the magnitude of measured attentional bias with treatment outcomes. The major goal of the present study was to determine if pre‐treatment attentional bias to personal drug use reminders in an addiction Stroop task predicts relapse in treatment‐seeking, cocaine‐dependent subjects. Methods We sought to maximize the potential of attentional bias as a marker of risk for relapse by incorporating individualized rather than generalized drug use cues to reflect the personal conditioned associations that form the incentive motivation properties of drug cues in a sample of cocaine‐dependent subjects ( N = 35). Results Although a significant group Stroop interference effect was present for drug versus neutral stimuli (ie, attentional bias), the level of attentional bias for cocaine‐use words was not predictive of eventual relapse in this sample ( d = .56). A similar lack of prediction power was observed for a non‐drug counting word Stroop task as a significant interference effect was detected but did not predict relapse outcomes ( d = .40). Conclusions and Scientific Significance The results of the present study do not provide clear support for the predictive value of individual variation in drug‐related attentional bias to forecast probability of relapse in cocaine‐dependent men. (Am J Addict 2014;23:478–484)