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Event‐Related Potentials and Cue‐Reactivity in Alcoholism
Author(s) -
Herrmann Martin J.,
Weijers H.Gerd,
Wiesbeck Gerhard A.,
Aranda Derlis,
Böning Jobst,
Fallgatter Andreas J.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2000.tb01974.x
Subject(s) - cue reactivity , reactivity (psychology) , addiction , psychology , alcohol , event related potential , alcohol dependence , audiology , clinical psychology , cognition , psychiatry , developmental psychology , craving , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , alternative medicine , pathology
Background: Relapse is a major problem in the treatment of addictive behaviors. Conditioning models of alcohol addiction suggest that stimuli associated with previous drug use (cues) may initiate relapse in a definite group of alcoholics. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) might be useful to reveal the brain functional substrates of cue‐reactivity. Methods: In a preliminary investigation, 11 alcohol‐dependent patients who did not take part in the electrophysiological study completed a structured interview to rate 80 words as to the degree of relatedness to alcohol. Based on these results, cue‐reactivity for 15 alcohol‐related and 15 unrelated word cues, each repeated eight times, was investigated in 19 alcohol‐dependent men (44.2 ± 8.5 years) and 19 healthy control men (42.5 ± 12.5 years). Results: A cue‐reactivity that consisted of significantly higher amplitudes in the ERPs after alcohol‐related words compared with unrelated words was found in alcohol‐dependent patients, but not in controls, at the electrode location Pz [ F (1,36) = 5.2, p < 0.05]. Conclusions: Consistent with the hypothesis, only alcohol‐dependent patients were characterized by signs of increased cerebral activity associated with alcohol‐related compared with unrelated cues. Therefore, the results support the concept of cue‐reactivity in alcoholism based on a neurobiological measurement. Future investigations will show whether this cue‐reactivity can be applied to assess the risk of relapse in individual alcohol‐dependent patients.