Strong seduction: impulsivity and the impact of contextual cues on instrumental behavior in alcohol dependence.

ABSTRACT: Alcohol-related cues acquire incentive salience through Pavlovian conditioning and then can markedly affect instrumental behavior of alcohol-dependent patients to promote relapse. However, it is unclear whether similar effects occur with alcohol-unrelated cues. We tested 116 early-abstinent alcohol-dependent patients and 91 healthy controls who completed a delay discounting task to assess choice impulsivity, and a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm employing both alcohol-unrelated and alcohol-related stimuli. To modify instrumental choice behavior, we tiled the background of the computer screen either with conditioned stimuli (CS) previously generated by pairing abstract pictures with pictures indicating monetary gains or losses, or with pictures displaying alcohol or water

SUBMITTER: Sommer C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5611726 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature