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1.
Nicotine Tob Res ; 2024 Jun 08.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38850196

INTRODUCTION: Increased salience of drug-related cues over non-drug reinforcers can drive drug use and contribute to tobacco use disorder (TUD). An important scientific and clinical goal is to effectively measure this elevated drug-seeking behavior in TUD. However, most TUD assessments rely on self-reported cravings and cigarette consumption, not providing an objective measure of the impact of drug-cues on biasing behavior towards drugs. The probabilistic image choice (PIC) task investigates the choice of viewing drug-related pictures as compared to other salient pictures (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). This study aimed to develop and validate the PIC task for TUD and evaluate the associations between behavioral choice and tobacco craving, daily cigarette consumption, quit attempts and motivation to quit, and nicotine dependence (the Fagerström score). METHODS: We recruited 468 smokers and 121 nonsmokers using the Prolific online platform. Participants performed the PIC task twice (at a one-month interval) and completed other measures relevant to TUD. RESULTS: compared to nonsmokers, tobacco smokers selected to view significantly more tobacco images and less pleasant (non-drug reinforcer) images, a profile that remained stable at retest. Individual differences in choice of tobacco as compared to pleasant images on the PIC task were associated with craving but not with the other tobacco dependence measures, suggesting that the task may serve as a behavioral proxy measure of drug "wanting" rather than of cumulative nicotine exposure or physical dependence. CONCLUSIONS: these results suggest that the PIC task can be a valuable tool for objectively assessing craving-associated tobacco seeking in TUD. IMPLICATIONS SECTION: which should provide a brief description about what the study addsMost of the current measures of tobacco use disorder (TUD) rely on self-reports of consumption, dependence and craving and do not take into consideration the role of drug-related cues in driving tobacco seeking. This study shows that the probabilistic image choice (PIC) task provides an objective, reliable proxy measure of tobacco image seeking behavior in people who smoke cigarettes that is linked to craving (desire) for smoking but not to other measures of TUD. Therefore, the PIC task may be a useful complementary tool for the classification, diagnosis, and prognosis of TUD.

2.
BMC Psychiatry ; 24(1): 77, 2024 Jan 26.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38279085

BACKGROUND: A significant number of individuals with alcohol use disorder remain unresponsive to currently available treatments, which calls for the development of new alternatives. In parallel, psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder has recently yielded promising preliminary results. Building on extant findings, the proposed study is set to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary clinical efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy when incorporated as an auxiliary intervention during inpatient rehabilitation for severe alcohol use disorder. Moreover, it intends to pinpoint the modifications in the two core neurocognitive systems underscored by dual-process models of addiction. METHODS: In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 7-month parallel-group phase II superiority trial, 62 participants aged 21-64 years will be enrolled to undergo psilocybin-assisted therapy as part of a 4-week inpatient rehabilitation for severe alcohol use disorder. The experimental group will receive a high dose of psilocybin (30 mg), whereas the control group will receive an active placebo dose of psilocybin (5 mg), both within the context of a brief standardized psychotherapeutic intervention drawing from key elements of acceptance and commitment therapy. The primary clinical outcome is the between-group difference regarding the change in percentage of heavy drinking days from baseline to four weeks posthospital discharge, while safety and feasibility metrics will also be reported as primary outcomes. Key secondary assessments include between-group differences in terms of changes in (1) drinking behavior parameters up to six months posthospital discharge, (2) symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma, and global functioning, (3) neuroplasticity and key neurocognitive mechanisms associated with addiction, and (4) psychological processes and alcohol-related parameters. DISCUSSION: The discussion outlines issues that might arise from our design. TRIAL REGISTRATION: EudraCT 2022-002369-14 and NCT06160232.


Acceptance and Commitment Therapy , Alcoholism , Humans , Psilocybin/therapeutic use , Alcoholism/drug therapy , Double-Blind Method , Alcohol Drinking , Treatment Outcome , Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic , Clinical Trials, Phase II as Topic
3.
bioRxiv ; 2024 Feb 17.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37693420

Introduction: Increased salience of drug-related cues over non-drug reinforcers can drive drug use and contribute to tobacco use disorder (TUD). An important scientific and clinical goal is to effectively measure this elevated drug-seeking behavior in TUD. However, most TUD assessments rely on self-reported cravings and cigarette consumption, not providing an objective measure of the impact of drug-cues on biasing behavior towards drugs. The probabilistic image choice (PIC) task investigates the choice of viewing drug-related pictures as compared to other salient pictures (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). This study aimed to develop and validate the PIC task for TUD and evaluate the associations between behavioral choice and tobacco craving, daily cigarette consumption, quit attempts and motivation to quit, and nicotine dependence (the Fagerström score). Methods: We recruited 468 smokers and 121 nonsmokers using the Prolific online platform. Participants performed the PIC task twice (at a one-month interval) and completed other measures relevant to TUD. Results: compared to nonsmokers, tobacco smokers selected to view significantly more tobacco images and less pleasant (non-drug reinforcer) images, a profile that remained stable at retest. Individual differences in choice of tobacco as compared to pleasant images on the PIC task were associated with craving but not with the other tobacco dependence measures, suggesting that the task may serve as a behavioral proxy measure of drug "wanting" rather than of cumulative nicotine exposure or physical dependence. Conclusions: these results suggest that the PIC task can be a valuable tool for objectively assessing craving-associated tobacco seeking in TUD.

5.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev ; 153: 105377, 2023 Oct.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37648042

BANERJEE Nilosmita., CHEN Zhang., CLARK Luke., NOËL Xavier. Behavioural expressions of loss-chasing in gambling: A systematic scoping review NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV 152(1) XXX-XXX, 2023. - Loss-chasing, the tendency to continue and/or intensify gambling following losses, is a key clinical symptom in gambling disorder and a central feature endorsed by at-risk problem gamblers. Despite its centrality, loss-chasing has been often operationalised across distinct behavioural expressions. The current systematic scoping review aimed to map the heterogeneous operationalisations of loss-chasing in the literature. The reviewed studies defined loss-chasing either between-sessions (n = 39) or within-sessions (n = 38), as a long-recognised distinction. For both categories, further behavioural expressions could be distinguished. Between-session loss-chasing was captured by endorsing an item 'returning another day/time to recoup losses', or behaviourally as the interval between successive sessions, or as increasing stakes in the next session. Within-session loss-chasing was defined as continuing and/or intensifying gambling either by increased risk-taking, stake size, or speed of play. Additionally, much heterogeneity was observed in the gambling contexts examined, the exact definition of loss, and the potential delineation of win-chasing. Open questions and future directions are discussed. Overall, this paper serves as a first step towards more conceptual clarity of loss-chasing.

6.
Front Psychiatry ; 14: 1161879, 2023.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37124256

Addiction is a persistent, recurring condition characterized by repeated relapses despite the desire to control drug use or maintain sobriety. The attainment of abstinence is hindered by persistent maladaptive drug-associated memories, which drive drug-seeking and use behavior. This article examines the preliminary evidence supporting the combination of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques and memory editing (or reconsolidation) interventions as add-on forms of treatment for individuals with substance-related disorders (SUD). Studies have shown that NIBS can modestly reduce drug use and craving through improved cognitive control or other undetermined reasons. Memory reconsolidation, a process by which a previously consolidated memory trace can be made labile again, can potentially erase or significantly weaken SUD memories underpinning craving and the propensity for relapse. This approach conveys enthusiasm while also emphasizing the importance of managing boundary conditions and null results for interventions found on fear memory reconsolidation. Recent studies, which align with the state-dependency and activity-selectivity hypotheses, have shown that the combination of NIBS and behavioral interventions holds promise for treating SUD by reducing self-reported and physiological aspects of craving. Effective long-term outcomes for this procedure require better identification of critical memories, a deeper understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying SUD and memory reconsolidation and overcoming any boundary conditions of destabilized memories. This will enable the procedure to be personalized to the unique needs of individual patients.

7.
Biology (Basel) ; 12(5)2023 Apr 24.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37237457

(1) Background: Inhibitory and rewarding processes that mediate attentional biases to addiction-related cues may slightly differ between patients suffering from alcohol use (AUD) or gambling (GD) disorder. (2) Methods: 23 AUD inpatients, 19 GD patients, and 22 healthy controls performed four separate Go/NoGo tasks, in, respectively, an alcohol, gambling, food, and neutral long-lasting cueing context during the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). (3) Results: AUD patients showed a poorer inhibitory performance than controls (slower response latencies, lower N2d, and delayed P3d components). In addition, AUD patients showed a preserved inhibitory performance in the alcohol-related context (but a more disrupted one in the food-related context), while GD patients showed a specific inhibitory deficit in the game-related context, both indexed by N2d amplitude modulations. (4) Conclusions: Despite sharing common addiction-related mechanisms, AUD and GD patients showed different patterns of response to (non-)rewarding cues that should be taken into account in the therapeutic context.

9.
J Behav Addict ; 11(3): 831-844, 2022 Sep 26.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36112488

Background and aims: Experiencing acute stress is common in behavioral addictions such as gambling disorder. Additionally, like most substance-induced addictions, aberrant decision-making wherein a reactive habit-induced response (conceptualized as a Model-free [MF] in reinforcement learning) suppresses a flexible goal-directed response (conceptualized as a Model-based [MB]) is also common in gambling disorder. In the current study we investigated the influence of acute stress on the balance between habitual response and the goal-directed system. Methods: A sample of N = 116 problem gamblers (PG) and healthy controls (HC) performed an acute stress task - the Socially Evaluated Cold pressure task (SECPT) - or a control task. Self-reported stress and salivary cortisol were collected as measures of acute stress. Following the SECPT, participants performed the Two-Step Markov Task to account for the relative contribution of MB and MF strategies. Additionally, verbal working memory and IQ measures were collected to account for their mediating effects on the orchestration between MB/MF and the impact of stress. Results: Both groups had comparable baseline and stress-induced cortisol response to the SECPT. Non-stressed PG displayed lower MB learning than HC. MANOVA and regression analyses showed a deleterious effect of stress-induced cortisol response on the orchestration between MB and MF learning in HC but not in PG. These effects remained when controlling for working memory and IQ. Discussion and Conclusions: We found an abnormal pattern of modulation of stress on the orchestration between MB and MF learning among PG. Several interpretations and future research directions are discussed.


Behavior, Addictive , Gambling , Humans , Decision Making/physiology , Reinforcement, Psychology , Motivation
10.
PLoS One ; 17(8): e0273359, 2022.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35981088

The tendency to continue or intensify gambling after losing (loss-chasing) is widely regarded as a defining feature of gambling disorder. However, loss-chasing in real gambling contexts is multifaceted, and some aspects are better understood than others. Gamblers may chase losses between multiple sessions or within a single session. Furthermore, within a session, loss-chasing can be expressed in the decision of (1) when to stop, (2) how much stake to bet, and (3) the speed of play after winning and losing. Using a large player-tracking data set (>2500 players, >10 million rounds) collected from the online commercial game Mystery Arena, we examined these three behavioral expressions of within-session loss-chasing. While the first two aspects (when to stop and how much stake to bet) have been examined previously, the current research is the first large-scale study to examine the effects of wins and losses on the speed of play in real gambling. The players were additionally assigned different involvement levels by the operator based on their gambling behavior on the operator's own platform, which further allowed us to examine group differences in loss-chasing. We found that after winning, both the high- and low-involvement groups were less likely to stop, and increased the stake amount, thus showing win-chasing instead of loss-chasing in these two facets. After losing, both groups played more quickly though, which may reflect an urge to continue gambling (as an expression of loss-chasing). Wins and losses had a smaller influence on the speed of play for the high-involvement players, suggesting that they might have reduced sensitivity to wins and/or losses. Future work can further examine chasing in different gambling products and in people with gambling problems to assess the generalizability of these findings.


Gambling , Gambling/classification , Gambling/psychology , Humans , Online Systems/trends , Reward
11.
Front Psychiatry ; 13: 770414, 2022.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35432015

Background: The severity of symptoms represents an important source of distress in patients with a psychiatric disease. However, the extent to which this endogenous stress factor interacts with genetic vulnerability factors for predicting suicide risks remains unclear. Methods: We evaluated whether the severity of symptoms interacts with a genetic vulnerability factor (the serotonin transporter gene-linked promoter region variation) in predicting the frequency of lifetime suicide attempts in patients with a psychiatric disease. Symptom severity and 5-HTTLPR polymorphism were collected from a sample of 95 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Lifetime suicide attempt was the primary outcome, and antecedent of multiple suicide attempts was the secondary outcome. Results: The gene-by-symptoms interaction was associated with an excess risk of suicide attempts (OR = 4.39, 95CI[1.44, 13.38], p < 0.009) and of multiple suicide attempts (OR = 4.18, 95CI[1.04, 16.77], p = 0.043). Symptom severity (moderate, severe, or extreme) was associated with an approximately five-fold increase in the odds of a lifetime suicide attempt in patients carrying one or two copies of the short allele of 5-HTTLPR. No such relationship was found for patients carrying the long allele. Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence for the gene-by-stress interaction on suicide attempt when stress is operationalized as symptom severity. Progress in suicide research may come from efforts to investigate the gene-by-symptoms interaction hypothesis in a variety of diseases.

12.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res ; 46(2): 300-311, 2022 02.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35181906

BACKGROUND: A reduced capacity to mentally simulate future scenarios could be of clinical importance in alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying episodic future thinking (EFT) impairment in AUD. METHODS: We tested patients with severe AUD using two measures of EFT: the individual's own subjective experience of their imaginings (phenomenology) and the objective number of details included in imagined events, as assessed by an independent observer (examination). The comparison between the two measures allowed us to investigate the extent to which the subjective and objective characteristics of EFT are calibrated in healthy and AUD participants matched for age, education, and gender. The possible impact of cognitive functioning and disturbed mood on EFT measures was also investigated. RESULTS: In terms of objective details of EFT, patients with AUD (n = 40) generated fewer episodic components and more non-episodic components than control participants (n = 40), even when controlling for cognitive functioning. However, self-ratings of phenomenological characteristics indicated that participants with AUD perceived imagined future events at a similar level of detail as control participants. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between objective and subjective measures in healthy individuals but not in the AUD group. A higher depression score in the AUD group was not associated with the EFT measures. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest a distorted self-assessment of the richness of imagined future events in individuals with AUD. We discuss these apparent limitations in metacognitive abilities and verbal descriptions of imagined events among individuals with AUD and their clinical implications.


Alcoholism/psychology , Cognition , Memory, Episodic , Thinking , Adult , Alcoholism/therapy , Case-Control Studies , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Surveys and Questionnaires
13.
Cerebellum ; 21(6): 1123-1134, 2022 Dec.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34637054

Recent advances in social neuroscience have highlighted the critical role of the cerebellum in social cognition, and especially the posterior cerebellum. Studies have supported the view that the posterior cerebellum builds internal action models of our social interactions to predict how other people's actions will be executed and what our most likely responses are to these actions. This mechanism allows to better anticipate action sequences during social interactions in an automatic and intuitive way and to fine-tune these anticipations, making it easier to understand other's social behaviors and mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions, traits). In this paper, we argue that the central role of the posterior cerebellum in identifying and automatizing social action sequencing provides a fruitful starting point for investigating social dysfunctions in a variety of clinical pathologies, such as autism, obsessive-compulsive and bipolar disorder, depression, and addiction. Our key hypothesis is that dysfunctions of the posterior cerebellum lead to under- or overuse of inflexible social routines and lack of plasticity for learning new, more adaptive, social automatisms. We briefly review past research supporting this view and propose a program of research to test our hypothesis. This approach might alleviate a variety of mental problems of individuals who suffer from inflexible automatizations that stand in the way of adjustable and intuitive social behavior, by increasing posterior cerebellar plasticity using noninvasive neurostimulation or neuro-guided training programs.


Cerebellum , Social Behavior , Humans , Cerebellum/physiology
14.
Brain Stimul ; 14(6): 1531-1543, 2021.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34687964

BACKGROUND: Approximately half of all people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) relapse into alcohol reuse in the next few weeks after a withdrawal treatment. Brain stimulation and cognitive training represent recent forms of complementary interventions in the context of AUD. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of five sessions of 2 mA bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for 20 min over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (left cathodal/right anodal) combined with alcohol cue inhibitory control training (ICT) as part of rehabilitation. The secondary outcomes were executive functioning (e.g. response inhibition) and craving intensity, two mechanisms strongly related to abstinence. METHODS: A randomized clinical trial with patients (n = 125) with severe AUD at a withdrawal treatment unit. Each patient was randomly assigned to one of four conditions, in a 2 [verum vs. sham tDCS] x 2 [alcohol cue vs. neutral ICT] factorial design. The main outcome of treatment was the abstinence rate after two weeks or more (up to one year). RESULTS: Verum tDCS improved the abstinence rate at the 2-week follow-up compared to the sham condition, independently of the training condition (79.7% [95% CI = 69.8-89.6] vs. 60.7% [95% CI = 48.3-73.1]; p = .02). A priori contrasts analyses revealed higher abstinence rates for the verum tDCS associated with alcohol cue ICT (86.1% [31/36; 95% CI = 74.6-97.6]) than for the other three conditions (64% [57/89; 95% CI = 54-74]). These positive clinical effects on abstinence did not persist beyond two weeks after the intervention. Neither the reduction of craving nor the improvement in executive control resulted specifically from prefrontal-tDCS and ICT. CONCLUSIONS: AUD patients who received tDCS applied to DLPFC showed a significantly higher abstinence rate during the weeks following rehabilitation. When combined with alcohol specific ICT, brain stimulation may provide better clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT03447054 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03447054.


Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation , Cues , Double-Blind Method , Humans , Prefrontal Cortex/physiology , Recurrence , Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation/methods
15.
Transl Psychiatry ; 11(1): 408, 2021 07 26.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34312367

As massive amounts of information are becoming available to people, understanding the mechanisms underlying information-seeking is more pertinent today than ever. In this study, we investigate the underlying motivations to seek out information in healthy and addicted individuals. We developed a novel decision-making task and a novel computational model which allows dissociating the relative contribution of two motivating factors to seek out information: a desire for novelty and a general desire for knowledge. To investigate whether/how the motivations to seek out information vary between healthy and addicted individuals, in addition to healthy controls we included a sample of individuals with gambling disorder-a form of addiction without the confound of substance consumption and characterized by compulsive gambling. Our results indicate that healthy subjects and problem gamblers adopt distinct information-seeking "modes". Healthy information-seeking behavior was mostly motivated by a desire for novelty. Problem gamblers, on the contrary, displayed reduced novelty-seeking and an increased desire for accumulating knowledge compared to healthy controls. Our findings not only shed new light on the motivations driving healthy and addicted individuals to seek out information, but they also have important implications for the treatment and diagnosis of behavioral addiction.


Behavior, Addictive , Gambling , Health Status , Humans , Motivation
16.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res ; 45(3): 620-629, 2021 03.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33486791

BACKGROUND: Spontaneous motor responses of approach and avoidance toward stimuli are important in characterizing psychopathological conditions, including alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, divergent results have been reported, possibly due to confounded parameters (e.g., using a symbolic vs. a sensorimotor task, implementation of approach-avoidance as a measure vs. a manipulation). METHODS: We studied whole-body/posturometric changes by using a sensorimotor measure relying on embodied cognition principles to assess forward (approach) and backward (avoidance) spontaneous leaning movements. Over a 12-second period, 51 male patients with AUD and 29 male control participants were instructed to stand still in response to both alcohol and sexual visual content. Patients with AUD were then divided into "abstainers" and "relapsers," depending on their continuous abstinence at 2 weeks postdischarge (obtained via a telephone follow-up interview). The effects of the group, the stimulus type, the experimental period, and their interactions on the posturometric changes were tested using mixed Analyses of variance (ANOVAs), with a significance threshold set at 0.05. RESULTS: Contrary to our expectations, patients and controls did not show significant difference in their forward/backward micromovements while passively viewing alcohol or sexual content (p > 0.1). However, in line with our hypothesis, patients who relapsed several weeks following discharge from the rehabilitation program were significantly more reactive and more likely to lean back during the first seconds of viewing alcohol cues (p = 0.002). Further, "relapsers" were more likely to lean forward during exposure to sexual content than participants who remained abstinent (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Among individuals with AUD, there are distinct pattern of spontaneous movements that differentiate "abstainers" and "relapsers," findings that can be understood in light of existing data and theories on action tendencies.


Alcohol Drinking/psychology , Alcoholism/psychology , Photic Stimulation/methods , Postural Balance/physiology , Sexual Behavior/physiology , Sexual Behavior/psychology , Adult , Alcohol Abstinence/psychology , Alcohol Abstinence/trends , Alcohol Drinking/trends , Alcoholism/diagnosis , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Movement/physiology , Recurrence , Self Report
17.
Front Psychol ; 11: 697, 2020.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32425846

The Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is regularly associated with depression and trait emotion regulation. However, the interaction between HRV and emotional disturbances is still debated. Only a few studies indicate that HRV moderates the effect of personality traits involved in psychopathological disorders. Since the regulation of emotions is a transdiagnostic factor for most psychological disorders, this study aimed to explore whether HRV moderates the relationship between trait emotion dysregulation and depressive symptoms. We collected data from 148 participants via online questionnaires and HRV measurements at rest. Results show for the 114 female remaining in the study that whereas high emotion regulation difficulties led to higher depressive symptoms severity when resting HRV is low, depressive symptoms remain stable in the same condition but when resting HRV is high. Overall, high resting HRV appears to dampen the consequences of trait emotion regulation difficulties. Further studies are needed to confirm this result, but this suggests that usual response tendencies could be overcome by deactivating or inhibitory processes such as those implied in cognitive flexibility reflected through HRV, according to the neurovisceral integration model.

18.
Addict Behav ; 107: 106433, 2020 08.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32289744

Low insight is reported as a risk factor for relapse among patients treated for alcohol use disorders. However, to date, little is known on why patients with low insight are at higher risk for relapse. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that an implicit preference for alcohol over abstinence predicts relapse in patients with low, but not high, alcohol insight. Participants consisted of 77 patients who had received treatment for severe alcohol use disorder in a hospital in France. During hospitalization, they completed a self-report measure of insight and an implicit association test to assess implicit preference for alcohol over abstinence. The primary outcome was relapse assessed one month after discharge. Control variables were gender, age, cognitive deficit, anxiety, depression, craving, and impulsivity. Data were analysed using logistic regression analysis. After adjusting for demographic and clinical variables, relapse was predicted by the interaction between insight and implicit preference for alcohol but not by their main effects alone. Implicit preference for alcohol predicted relapse among patients with relatively low insight, but not among those with relatively high insight. These findings suggest that patients with low insight and strong implicit preference for alcohol are at a higher risk of relapse. Clinicians may therefore focus on and tailor specific interventions to prevent relapse in this vulnerable and at-risk population.


Alcoholism , Alcohol Drinking , Craving , France/epidemiology , Humans , Recurrence
19.
Front Psychol ; 11: 607866, 2020.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33408673

There is a debate over whether actions that resist devaluation (i.e., compulsive alcohol consumption) are primarily habit- or goal-directed. The incentive habit account of compulsive actions has received support from behavioral paradigms and brain imaging. In addition, the self-reported Creature of Habit Scale (COHS) has been proposed to capture inter-individual differences in habitual tendencies. It is subdivided into two dimensions: routine and automaticity. We first considered a French version of this questionnaire for validation, based on a sample of 386 undergraduates. The relationship between two dimensions of habit and the risk of substance use disorder and impulsive personality traits was also investigated. COHS has good psychometric properties with both features of habits positively associated with an Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory score. Besides, the propensity to rely more on routines was associated with lower levels of alcohol abuse and nicotine use, suggesting that some degree of routine might act as a protective factor against substance use. In contrast, a high automaticity score was associated with an increased risk of harmful alcohol use. These results demonstrate that the COHS is a valid measure of habitual tendencies and represents a useful tool for capturing inter-individual variations in drug use problems in undergraduates.

20.
Sci Rep ; 9(1): 19625, 2019 12 23.
Article En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31873133

Compulsive behaviors (e.g., addiction) can be viewed as an aberrant decision process where inflexible reactions automatically evoked by stimuli (habit) take control over decision making to the detriment of a more flexible (goal-oriented) behavioral learning system. These behaviors are thought to arise from learning algorithms known as "model-based" and "model-free" reinforcement learning. Gambling disorder, a form of addiction without the confound of neurotoxic effects of drugs, showed impaired goal-directed control but the way in which problem gamblers (PG) orchestrate model-based and model-free strategies has not been evaluated. Forty-nine PG and 33 healthy participants (CP) completed a two-step sequential choice task for which model-based and model-free learning have distinct and identifiable trial-by-trial learning signatures. The influence of common psychopathological comorbidities on those two forms of learning were investigated. PG showed impaired model-based learning, particularly after unrewarded outcomes. In addition, PG exhibited faster reaction times than CP following unrewarded decisions. Troubled mood, higher impulsivity (i.e., positive and negative urgency) and current and chronic stress reported via questionnaires did not account for those results. These findings demonstrate specific reinforcement learning and decision-making deficits in behavioral addiction that advances our understanding and may be important dimensions for designing effective interventions.


Behavior, Addictive , Decision Making , Gambling , Adult , Behavior, Addictive/physiopathology , Behavior, Addictive/psychology , Female , Gambling/physiopathology , Gambling/psychology , Humans , Male
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