Key Laboratory of Behavioral and Mental Health of Gansu Province, School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, People's Republic of China.
Subst Use Misuse. 2021;56(6):801-807. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2021.1899223. Epub 2021 Mar 23.
It is well-documented that heroin users demonstrate aberrant emotion-processing abilities. However, the mechanism by which heroin users process emotional information after it has captured their attention and entered their working memory is unclear.
A modified emotional 2-back task was used to examine whether heroin abstainers demonstrate specific bias patterns in updating emotional stimuli in their working memory.
In total, 26 male heroin abstainers and 29 healthy controls were asked to identify whether the current picture was the same as a picture that had appeared two trials earlier, while behavioral data and electroencephalogram data were collected.
Contrary to predictions, the heroin abstainers and healthy controls demonstrated a similar pattern of P300 activity in response to emotional stimuli with no between-group differences in accuracy or reaction time. More specifically, the P300 amplitudes were larger for negative pictures than for positive and neutral pictures. Surprisingly, we found larger P300 amplitudes at Fz electrodes than at Cz and Pz electrodes in the control group, whereas there was no significant difference at midline electrodes in the heroin abstainers.
CONCLUSIONS/IMPORTANCE: Although subtle differences may exist in attentional engagement toward incoming emotional stimulus between two groups, the similar P300 pattern may indicate partial preservation of emotional working memory capacity associated with adaptive emotion regulation in heroin abstainers. These results deepen our understanding of the emotion regulation impairments associated with chronic drug use.
有大量文献证明，海洛因使用者的情绪处理能力存在异常。然而，海洛因使用者在注意到并将情绪信息输入工作记忆后，其处理情绪信息的机制仍不清楚。
采用改良的情绪 2 -back 任务，考察海洛因戒断者在更新工作记忆中的情绪刺激时是否表现出特定的偏向模式。
共有 26 名男性海洛因戒断者和 29 名健康对照者被要求识别当前图片是否与前两个试次出现过的图片相同，同时记录行为数据和脑电图数据。
与预测相反，海洛因戒断者和健康对照组对情绪刺激的 P300 活动表现出相似的模式，准确性和反应时间无组间差异。更具体地说，负性图片的 P300 振幅大于正性和中性图片。令人惊讶的是，我们发现在对照组中，Fz 电极的 P300 振幅大于 Cz 和 Pz 电极，而在海洛因戒断者中，中线电极没有显著差异。
结论/意义：尽管两组之间对传入情绪刺激的注意力可能存在细微差异，但相似的 P300 模式可能表明，海洛因戒断者的情绪工作记忆能力与适应性情绪调节有关，存在部分保留。这些结果加深了我们对慢性药物使用相关情绪调节损伤的理解。
