Psychological Neuroscience Lab , Research Center in Psychology (CIPsi), School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Human Cognition Lab , Research Center in Psychology (CIPsi), School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2019 Jan;43(1):36-47. doi: 10.1111/acer.13916. Epub 2018 Nov 25.
Research with the Think/No-Think (TNT) task has shown that voluntary suppression of an unwanted memory may lead to its later forgetting. To date, however, no study has assessed the memory suppression abilities in alcohol-related contexts despite the potential implications that it might have for alcohol research. With this aim, we developed a new version of the TNT paradigm, the TNT Alcohol (TNTA) task, which consists of 36 neutral pictures paired with 36 alcohol/no-alcohol images that are instructed to be suppressed or recollected.
Electroencephalographic activity was recorded from 64 electrodes while 20 young healthy females performed the TNTA task. The event-related potentials (ERPs) typically involved in memory suppression/recollection were analyzed, namely the fronto-central N2, the late parietal positivity (LPP), and the frontal slow wave (FSW).
Findings revealed reduced recall for previously learned images that were subsequently instructed to be suppressed (No-Think) relative to those instructed to be retrieved (Think) and those not cued to be suppressed or retrieved (Baseline). This reduction seemed to be more prominent for alcohol-related memories. In addition, ERP analysis showed that compared to attempts of recollection, attempts of memory suppression were associated with attenuated LPP amplitude-more pronounced for alcohol-related memories-(indicating reduced conscious recollection for No-Think images) as well as with increased FSW (suggesting strategic control aiming at decrease accessibility of unwanted memories).
These results replicate and extend previously reported behavioral and ERP findings in the TNT paradigm and suggest that the TNTA task may be a useful instrument to measure the ability to suppress alcohol-related memories.
使用思维抑制（TNT）任务的研究表明，自愿抑制不想要的记忆可能导致其随后被遗忘。然而，迄今为止，尽管它可能对酒精研究具有潜在影响，但没有研究评估过与酒精相关背景下的记忆抑制能力。为此，我们开发了 TNT 范式的新版本，即思维抑制酒精（TNTA）任务，它由 36 个中性图片和 36 个酒精/非酒精图片组成，要求被抑制或回忆。
64 个电极记录了 20 名年轻健康女性执行 TNTA 任务时的脑电图活动。分析了与记忆抑制/回忆相关的事件相关电位（ERP），即额中央 N2、后顶正波（LPP）和额慢波（FSW）。
研究结果显示，与被指示回忆的图像（Think）相比，之前学习过的被指示抑制的图像（No-Think）的回忆减少，与未被提示抑制或回忆的图像（Baseline）相比也减少。这种减少对于与酒精相关的记忆似乎更为明显。此外，ERP 分析表明，与尝试回忆相比，尝试记忆抑制与减弱的 LPP 振幅相关，对于与酒精相关的记忆更明显（表明对 No-Think 图像的有意识回忆减少），以及增加的 FSW（表明旨在降低不想要记忆可及性的策略控制）。
这些结果复制并扩展了 TNT 范式中先前报告的行为和 ERP 发现，表明 TNTA 任务可能是衡量抑制与酒精相关记忆能力的有用工具。
