Treatment in Hospital for Alcohol-Dependent Patients Decreases Attentional Bias.
Treatment in hospital for alcohol-dependent patients decreases attentional bias.
Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2013; 9: 773-9
Flaudias V, Brousse G, de Chazeron I, Planche F, Brun J, Llorca PM
Previous studies in alcohol-dependent patients have shown an attentional bias (AB) under related substance cues, which can lead to relapse. This AB can be evaluated by the alcohol Stroop test (AST). The AST is a modified Stroop task in which participants have to name the color of an alcohol-related word or a neutral word. AB is the response-time difference between these two types of words. The goal of the current study was to examine modification of AB during specialized hospitalization for alcohol dependence, with the suppression of a training bias that could be present in within-subject design.Individuals with alcohol-dependence disorders (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition) and admitted for withdrawal in the addiction unit of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand (test group, n = 42) and persons with no alcohol or psychiatric disorder (control group, n = 16), recruited among colleagues and friends of the staff, performed the AST. A subgroup of the test group performed the AST in admission (admission group, n = 19), and another subgroup undertook the test immediately before discharge (discharge group, n = 23).Results showed an AB only for patients seen at admission (F[1,55] = 3.283, P = 0.075). Moreover, we observed that the AB in the admission group (mean = 34 ms, standard deviation [SD] = 70.06) was greater than the AB in the control group (mean = 23 ms, SD = 93.42), itself greater than the AB in the discharge group (mean = -12 ms, SD = 93.55) (t[55] = -1.71; P = 0.09).Although the results are preliminary, the present study provides evidence for changes in the AB during alcohol-addiction treatment and for the value of these methods to diminish AB during detoxification. HubMed – addiction
Effects of inactivating the agranular or granular insular cortex on the acquisition of the morphine-induced conditioned place preference and naloxone-precipitated conditioned place aversion in rats.
J Psychopharmacol. 2013 Jun 19;
Li CL, Zhu N, Meng XL, Li YH, Sui N
Recent studies have indicated that the insula underlies affective learning. Although affective learning is well-established in the development of opiate addiction, the role of insula in this context remains unclear. To elucidate the organization of opiate-related affective learning within the insular cortex, we reversibly inactivated each of two major subdivisions of the insula in rats and tested the effects of this inactivation on the acquisition of morphine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) and conditioned place aversion (CPA) induced by naloxone-precipitated acute morphine withdrawal. Results showed that inactivation of the primary interoceptive posterior granular insula (GI), but not that of the high-order anterior agranular insula (AI), disrupted the acquisition of CPP and that both GI and AI inactivation impaired the acquisition of CPA. These data suggest that the insular cortex is involved in positive and negative affective learning related to opiate addiction. In particular, the GI appears to be critical for both forms of affective learning, whereas the AI is crucial for learning associated with negative affects induced by opiate withdrawal. HubMed – addiction
Attractiveness of reformulated OxyContin(R) tablets: assessing comparative preferences and tampering potential.
J Psychopharmacol. 2013 Jun 19;
Sellers EM, Perrino PJ, Colucci SV, Harris SC
Reformulated OxyContin(®) (oxycodone HCl controlled-release or ORF) was developed as a tamper and abuse-deterrent product, to reduce the risk of product abuse, misuse and their consequences. This noninterventional single-session study asked participants who were medically-healthy recreational opioid users, aged 18 years and older, to consider how they would use commonly available supplies to tamper with placebo ORF and placebo original OxyContin (OC) tablets, and how they would assess the attractiveness of tampering and abusing ORF tablets, as compared with other opioid formulations. Participants provided information on past opioid use, and they assessed the properties of five nonhypothetical oxycodone products and two hypothetical oxycodone products. Participants provided feedback on tampering preferences, preferred tamper methods for each product, overall tampering potential and product preferences. We had 30 participants (27 males and 3 females; mean age 35 years, range 18-51) complete both the interview and tampering sessions. Participants judged OC as the most attractive, valuable, desirable and most likely to be tampered with, from among all opioid products studied. By contrast, they rated ORF as the least attractive, least valuable, least desirable, and least likely to be tampered with among all the nonhypothetical opioid products studied. These results suggested that recreational drug abusers view ORF tablets as tamper-deterrent products. HubMed – addiction
Altered Reward Processing in Adolescents With Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Cigarette Smoking.
JAMA Psychiatry. 2013 Jun 19; 1-10
Müller KU, Mennigen E, Ripke S, Banaschewski T, Barker GJ, Büchel C, Conrod P, Fauth-Bühler M, Flor H, Garavan H, Heinz A, Lawrence C, Loth E, Mann K, Martinot JL, Pausova Z, Rietschel M, Ströhle A, Struve M, Walaszek B, Schumann G, Paus T, Smolka MN,
IMPORTANCE Higher rates of substance use and dependence have been observed in the offspring of mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Animal studies indicate that prenatal exposure to nicotine alters the development of brain areas related to reward processing, which might be a risk factor for substance use and addiction later in life. However, no study has examined the effect of maternal smoking on the offspring’s brain response during reward processing. OBJECTIVE To determine whether adolescents with prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking differ from their nonexposed peers in the response of the ventral striatum to the anticipation or the receipt of a reward. DESIGN An observational case-control study. SETTING Data were obtained from the IMAGEN Study, a European multicenter study of impulsivity, reinforcement sensitivity, and emotional reactivity in adolescents. The IMAGEN sample consists of 2078 healthy adolescents (age range, 13-15 years) recruited from March 1, 2008, through December 31, 2011, in local schools. PARTICIPANTS We assessed an IMAGEN subsample of 177 adolescents with prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking and 177 nonexposed peers (age range, 13-15 years) matched by sex, maternal educational level, and imaging site. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURE Response to reward in the ventral striatum measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS In prenatally exposed adolescents, we observed a weaker response in the ventral striatum during reward anticipation (left side, F = 14.98 [P < .001]; right side, F = 15.95 [P < .001]) compared with their nonexposed peers. No differences were found regarding the responsivity of the ventral striatum to the receipt of a reward (left side, F = 0.21 [P = .65]; right side, F = 0.47 [P = .49]). CONCLUSIONS The weaker responsivity of the ventral striatum to reward anticipation in prenatally exposed adolescents may represent a risk factor for substance use and development of addiction later in life. This result highlights the need for education and preventive measures to reduce smoking during pregnancy. Future analyses should assess whether prenatally exposed adolescents develop an increased risk for substance use and addiction and which role the reported neuronal differences during reward anticipation plays in this development. HubMed – addiction