Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZA,, UK.
UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, Liverpool, UK.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2017 Oct;234(19):2979-2988. doi: 10.1007/s00213-017-4694-6. Epub 2017 Jul 25.
Exposure to alcohol-related cues leads to increased alcohol consumption, and this may be partially attributable to momentarily impaired impulse control.
We investigated if exposure to alcohol cues would impair inhibitory control and if the extent of this impairment would partially mediate the effect of alcohol cues on subsequent voluntary alcohol consumption.
We recruited 81 heavy drinkers (50 female) who completed baseline measures of inhibitory control (stop-signal task) and subjective craving before random allocation to an alcohol cue exposure or control group. The alcohol cue exposure group then completed a second stop-signal task (with embedded alcohol cues) with concurrent exposure to olfactory alcohol cues, in an alcohol context. The control group completed a second stop-signal task (with embedded water cues), accompanied by exposure to water cues, in a neutral context. Then, subjective craving and ad libitum alcohol consumption were measured in all participants.
Inhibitory control worsened (compared to baseline) to a greater extent in the alcohol cue exposure group compared to the control group. Craving and ad libitum alcohol consumption were elevated in the alcohol cue exposure group compared to the control group, although the group difference in alcohol consumption fell short of statistical significance. In support of our hypotheses, multiple mediation analyses demonstrated that elevated ad libitum alcohol consumption following alcohol cue exposure was partially mediated by both impaired inhibitory control and increased craving.
These findings suggest that state fluctuations in inhibitory control are a potential mechanism through which alcohol cues increase drinking behaviour.
接触与酒精相关的线索会导致饮酒量增加，而这在一定程度上可能归因于即时受损的冲动控制。
我们研究了接触酒精线索是否会损害抑制控制，以及这种损害程度是否会部分介导酒精线索对随后自愿饮酒的影响。
我们招募了 81 名重度饮酒者（50 名女性），在随机分配到酒精线索暴露组或对照组之前，完成了抑制控制（停止信号任务）和主观渴望的基线测量。然后，酒精线索暴露组在酒精环境中同时暴露于嗅觉酒精线索的情况下，完成第二个带有嵌入式酒精线索的停止信号任务。对照组在中性环境中，完成第二个带有嵌入式水线索的停止信号任务，并同时暴露于水线索。然后，所有参与者都测量了主观渴望和随意饮酒量。
与对照组相比，酒精线索暴露组的抑制控制在酒精线索暴露后（与基线相比）恶化得更严重。与对照组相比，酒精线索暴露组的渴望和随意饮酒量升高，但饮酒量的组间差异未达到统计学意义。支持我们的假设，多项中介分析表明，酒精线索暴露后随意饮酒量的增加部分是由抑制控制受损和渴望增加介导的。
这些发现表明，抑制控制的状态波动可能是酒精线索增加饮酒行为的一种潜在机制。
