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Impulsivity is a hallmark of problem gambling. However, impulsivity is not a unitary construct and this study investigated the relationship between problem gambling severity and two facets of impulsivity: impulsive action (impaired ability to withhold a motor response) and impulsive choice (abnormal aversion for the delay of reward). The recruitment includes 65 problem gamblers and 35 normal control participants. On the basis of DSM-IV-TR criteria, two groups of gamblers were distinguished: problem gamblers (n = 38) and pathological gamblers (n = 27) with similar durations of gambling practice. Impulsive action was assessed using a response inhibition task (the stop-signal task). Impulsive choice was estimated with the delay-discounting task. Possible confounds (e.g., IQ, mood, ADHD symptoms) were recorded. Both problem and pathological gamblers discounted reward at a higher rate than their controls, but only pathological gamblers showed abnormally low performance on the most demanding condition of the stop-signal task. None of the potential confounds covaried with these results. These results suggest that, whereas abnormal impulsive choice characterizes all problem gamblers, pathological gamblers' impairments in impulsive action may represent an important developmental pathway of pathological gambling.

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between problem gambling severity and decision-making situations that vary in two degrees of uncertainty (probability of outcome is known: decision-making under risk; probability of outcome is unknown: decision-making under ambiguity). For this purpose, we recruited 65 gamblers differing in problem gambling severity and 35 normal controls. Decision-making under ambiguity was assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Card Playing Task (CPT). Decision-making under risk was assessed with the Coin Flipping Task (CFT) and the Cups Task. In addition, we included an examination of two working memory components (verbal storage and dual tasking). Results show that problem gamblers performed worse than normal controls on both ambiguous and risky decision-making. Higher problem gambling severity scores were associated with poorer performance on ambiguous decision-making tasks (IGT and CPT) but not decision-making under risk. Additionally, we found that dual task performance correlated positively with decision-making under risk (CFT and Cups tasks) but not with decision-making under ambiguity (IGT and CPT). These results suggest that impairments in decision-making under uncertain conditions of problem gamblers may represent an important neurocognitive mechanism in the maintenance of their problem gambling.

Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Impulsivity is a hallmark of problem gambling. However, impulsivity is not a unitary construct and this study investigated the relationship between problem gambling severity and two facets of impulsivity: impulsive action (impaired ability to withhold a motor response) and impulsive choice (abnormal aversion for the delay of reward)., Journal Article, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Lack of self-awareness of one's decisions remains an understudied and elusive topic in the addiction literature. The present study aimed at taking a first step towards addressing this difficult subject through the use of a combination of behavioral procedures. Here, we explored the association between a metacognitive process (the ability to reflect and evaluate the awareness of one's own decision) and poor performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in a group of pathological gamblers (PG; n = 30), and in a comparison group (n = 35). This metacognitive process was assessed during the IGT with the post-decision wagering procedure, while a number of potential confounds (i.e. reward/loss sensitivity, dual-tasking) were controlled for. Results showed that: (1) Initial performance enhancement of the control group on IGT occurred without explicit knowledge of the task, thus confirming its implicit character; (2) compared to controls, performance of PG on the IGT failed to increase during the task; (3) taking into account increased reward sensitivity and decreased loss sensitivity as well as poorer dual-tasking in pathological gamblers, PG tended to exhibit a bias in evaluating their own performance on the IGT by maximizing their wagers independently of selecting advantageous decks. Our findings suggest that biased metacognition may affect pathological gamblers, leading to disadvantageous post-decision wagering, which is in turn linked to impaired decision making under ambiguity. Perhaps this deficit reflects the impaired insight and self-awareness that many addicts suffer from, thus providing a novel approach for capturing and measuring this impairment, and for investigating its possible causes., JOURNAL ARTICLE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

BACKGROUND: Impulsivity is a hallmark of addictive behaviors. Addicts' weakened inhibition of irrelevant prepotent responses is commonly thought to explain this association. However, inhibition is not a unitary mechanism. This study investigated the efficiency of overcoming competition due to irrelevant responses (i.e. inhibition of a prepotent response) and overcoming competition in memory (i.e. resistance to proactive interference) in sober and recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals. METHODS: Three cognitive tasks assessing the inhibition of a prepotent response (Hayling task, anti-saccade task and Stroop task) and two tasks tapping into the capacity to resist proactive interference (cued recall, Brown-Peterson variant) were administered to 30 non-amnesic recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals and 30 matched healthy participants without alcohol dependency. In addition, possible confounds such as verbal updating in working memory was assessed. RESULTS: Alcohol-dependent subjects performed worse than healthy participants on the three cognitive tasks assessing the inhibition of irrelevant prepotent responses but group performance was similar in the tasks assessing overcoming proactive interference in memory, updating of working memory and abstract reasoning. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that alcohol-dependence is mainly associated with impaired capacity to intentionally suppress irrelevant prepotent response information. Control of proactive interference from memory is preserved. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed., JOURNAL ARTICLE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Impaired insight into behavior may be one of the clinical characteristics of pathological gambling. In the present study, we tested whether the capacity to evaluate accurately the quality of one's own decisions during a non-gambling task was impaired in problem gamblers. Twenty-five problem gamblers and 25 matched healthy participants performed an artificial grammar-learning paradigm, in which the quality of choice remains uncertain throughout the task. After each trial of this task, participants had to indicate how confident they were in the grammaticality judgements using a scale ranging from 1 (low confidence) to 7 (high confidence). Results showed that (i), problem gamblers' performance on the grammaticality test was lower than controls'; (ii) there was a significant correlation between grammaticality judgments and confidence for control participants, which indicates metacognitive insight and the presence of conscious knowledge; (iii) this correlation was not significant in problem gamblers, which suggests a disconnection between performance and confidence in this group. These findings suggest that problem gamblers are impaired in their metacognitive abilities on a non-gambling task, which suggests that compulsive gambling is associated with poor insight as a general factor. Clinical interventions tailored to improve metacognition in gambling could be a fruitful avenue of research in order to prevent pathological gambling., JOURNAL ARTICLE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Background Increased alcohol cue-reactivity and altered inhibitory processing have been reported in heavy social drinkers and alcohol-dependent patients, and are associated with relapse. In social drinkers, these two processes have been usually studied separately by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) during rapid picture presentation. The aim of our study was to confront social drinkers to a task triggering high alcohol cue-reactivity, to verify whether it specifically altered inhibitory performance, by using long-lasting background picture presentation. Methods ERP were recorded during visual Go/No-Go tasks performed by social drinkers, in which a frequent Go signal (letter “M”), and a rare No-Go signal (letter “W”) were superimposed on three different types of background pictures: neutral (black background), alcohol-related and non alcohol-related. Results Our data suggested that heavy social drinkers made more commission errors than light drinkers, but only in the alcohol-related context. Neurophysiologically, this was reflected by a delayed No-Go P3 component. Conclusions Elevated alcohol cue-reactivity may lead to poorer inhibitory performance in heavy social drinkers, and may be considered as an important vulnerability factor in developing alcohol misuse. Prevention programs should be designed to decrease the high arousal of alcohol stimuli and strengthen cognitive control in young, at-risk individuals., This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

At the theoretical level, this first observation of a specific deficit for emotional empathy in alcoholism, combined with the exact inverse pattern observed in other psychiatric populations, leads to a double-dissociation, which supports the notion that emotional and cognitive empathy are 2 distinct abilities. At the clinical level, this deficit calls for considering emotional empathy rehabilitation as a crucial concern in psychotherapy.

It has been repeatedly shown that alcohol dependence is associated with emotional impairments, particularly for emotional facial expression decoding. Nevertheless, most earlier studies focused on basic emotions and did not explore more subtle affective states. In order to obtain a more accurate evaluation, and in view of earlier results showing impaired performance for this task among high-risk children of alcohol-dependent participants, the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test was used here to explore emotional recognition in alcohol dependence. We showed that the de ficit described earlier for basic negative emotions is (1) generalizable to complex and positive emotions; and (2) specific for emotional features. This strengthens the proposition of a general face recognition impairment in alcohol dependence.

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There is a wealth of evidence showing enhanced attention toward drug-related information (i.e., attentional bias) in substance abusers. However, little is known about attentional bias in deregulated behaviors without substance use such as abnormal gambling. This study examined whether problem gamblers (PrG, as assessed through self-reported gambling-related craving and gambling dependence severity) exhibit attentional bias for gambling-related cues. Forty PrG and 35 control participants performed a change detection task using the flicker paradigm, in which two images differing in only one aspect are repeatedly flashed on the screen until the participant is able to report the changing item. In our study, the changing item was either neutral or related to gambling. Eye movements were recorded, which made it possible to measure both initial orienting of attention as well as its maintenance on gambling information. Direct (eye-movements) and indirect (change in detection latency) measures of attention in individuals with problematic gambling behaviors suggested the occurrence of both engagement and of maintenance attentional biases toward gambling-related visual cues. Compared to nonproblematic gamblers, PrG exhibited (a) faster reaction times to gambling-cues as compared to neutral cues, (b) higher percentage of initial saccades directed toward gambling pictures, and (c) an increased fixation duration and fixation count on gambling pictures. In the PrG group, measures of gambling-related attentional bias were not associated with craving for gambling and gambling dependence severity. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.

Although there is considerable information concerning the attentional biases in psychoactive substance use and misuse, much less is known about the contribution of attentional processing in problem gambling. The aim of this study was to examine whether problem gamblers (PrG) exhibit attentional bias at the level of the encoding processing stage. Forty PrG and 35 controls participated in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which they were required to identify both gambling and neutral words that appeared in a rapid serial visual presentation. Explicit motivation (e.g., intrinsic/arousal, extrinsic, amotivation) toward the gambling cues was recorded. A diminished AB effect for gambling-related words compared to neutral targets was identified in PrG. In contrast, AB was similar when either gambling-related or neutral words were presented to controls. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the reduced AB for gambling-related words and the sub-score of intrinsic/arousal motivation to gamble in PrG. Such findings suggest that the PrG group exhibits an enhanced ability to process gambling-related information, which is associated with their desire to gamble for arousal reasons. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed.

Sober alcoholic abusers exhibit personality traits such as novelty-seeking (NS) and sensation-seeking, which overlap to a limited extent. In parallel, they also show impaired executive and decision-making processes. However, little is known about the specific and common cognitive processes associated with NS and sensation-seeking personality traits in detoxified sober alcoholic abusers. In these present studies, we have investigated the relationships between executive functioning/central executive of working memory (pre-potent response inhibition, manipulation stored in working memory), and decision-making under uncertainty and NS/sensation-seeking traits in such alcoholics. Compared with healthy controls (n = 30, mean age = 40.2), and in agreement with previous studies, alcoholics (n = 30, mean age = 40.4) showed higher levels of both NS and sensation-seeking traits. Alcoholics were also disadvantaged with respect to (a) gambling tasks, as reported previously, and (b) a poor ability to manipulate information stored in working memory and inhibit pre-potent responses. Most importantly, regression analyses and mediation analyses measures showed that poor response inhibition and decision-making were associated with high NS behaviour. In addition, impaired decision-making and manipulation of stored information in working memory were associated with a high sensation-seeking trait. Overall, these results support the existence of specific links between cognitive executive functioning, decision-making under uncertainty and NS/sensation-seeking personality traits in individuals with alcoholism.

Emotional impairments constitute a crucial and widely described dimension of alcoholism, but several affective abilities are still to be thoroughly explored among alcohol-dependent patients. This is particularly true for empathy, which constitutes an essential emotional competence for interpersonal relations and has been shown to be highly impaired in various psychiatric states. The present study aimed at exploring empathic abilities in alcoholism, and notably the hypothesis of a differential deficit between emotional and cognitive empathy., Journal Article, FLWIN, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Background: The processing of emotional stimuli is thought to be negatively biased in major depression. This study investigates this issue using musical, vocal and facial affective stimuli. Methods: 23 depressed in-patients and 23 matched healthy controls were recruited. Affective information processing was assessed through musical, vocal and facial emotion recognition tasks. Depression, anxiety level and attention capacity were controlled. Results: The depressed participants demonstrated less accurate identification of emotions than the control group in all three sorts of emotion-recognition tasks. The depressed group also gave higher intensity ratings than the controls when scoring negative emotions, and they were more likely to attribute negative emotions to neutral voices and faces. Limitations: Our in-patient group might differ from the more general population of depressed adults. They were all taking anti-depressant medication, which may have had an influence on their emotional information processing. Conclusions: Major depression is associated with a general negative bias in the processing of emotional stimuli. Emotional processing impairment in depression is not confined to interpersonal stimuli (faces and voices), being also present in the ability to feel music accurately. © 2010 Elsevier B.V., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

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Although there is considerable information concerning the attentional biases in psychoactive substance use and misuse, much less is known about the contribution of attentional processing in problem gambling. The aim of this study was to examine whether problem gamblers (PrG) exhibit attentional bias at the level of the encoding processing stage. Forty PrG and 35 controls participated in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm in which they were required to identify both gambling and neutral words that appeared in a rapid serial visual presentation. Explicit motivation (e.g. intrinsic/arousal, extrinsic, amotivation) toward the gambling cues was recorded. A diminished AB effect for gambling-related words compared to neutral targets was identified in PrG. In contrast, AB was similar when either gambling-related or neutral words were presented to controls. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the reduced AB for gambling-related words and the sub-score of intrinsic/arousal motivation to gamble in PrG. Such findings suggest that the PrG group exhibits an enhanced ability to process gambling-related information, which is associated with their desire to gamble for arousal reasons. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed., Comparative Study, Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

There is a wealth of evidence showing enhanced attention toward drug-related information (i.e. attentional bias) in substance abusers. However, little is known about attentional bias in deregulated behaviors without substance use such as abnormal gambling. This study examined whether problem gamblers (PrG, as assessed through self-reported gambling-related craving and gambling dependence severity) exhibit attentional bias for gambling-related cues. Forty PrG and 35 control participants performed a change detection task using the flicker paradigm, in which two images differing in only one aspect are repeatedly flashed on the screen until the participant is able to report the changing item. In our study, the changing item was either neutral or related to gambling. Eye movements were recorded, which made it possible to measure both initial orienting of attention as well as its maintenance on gambling information. Direct (eye-movements) and indirect (change in detection latency) measures of attention in individuals with problematic gambling behaviors suggested the occurrence of both engagement and of maintenance attentional biases toward gambling-related visual cues. Compared to nonproblematic gamblers, PrG exhibited (a) faster reaction times to gambling-cues as compared to neutral cues, (b) higher percentage of initial saccades directed toward gambling pictures, and (c) an increased fixation duration and fixation count on gambling pictures. In the PrG group, measures of gambling-related attentional bias were not associated with craving for gambling and gambling dependence severity. Theoretical and clinical implications of these results are discussed., Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Sober alcoholic abusers exhibit personality traits such as novelty-seeking (NS) and sensation-seeking, which overlap to a limited extent. In parallel, they also show impaired executive and decision-making processes. However, little is known about the specific and common cognitive processes associated with NS and sensation-seeking personality traits in detoxified sober alcoholic abusers., Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Polysubstance dependence has been associated with many neurocognitive impairments. The present study explored one of these deficits, namely conditional reasoning, using the Wason selection task. In healthy individuals, social contract and precautionary content improve conditional reasoning performance compared with descriptive or abstract content. Twenty-two recently detoxified polysubstance-dependent patients were compared with 22 controls matched for sex, age, and education level on their performance on the Wason selection task across problems involving social contract, precautionary, and descriptive conditional rules, controlling for depression, anxiety levels, and verbal intelligence. Conditional reasoning on descriptive and social contract rules was severely impaired in polysubstance-dependent patients. Precautionary reasoning was also impaired, but to a lesser degree than the other modalities of conditional reasoning. These results may reflect a toxic effect of chronic multiple-drug consumption on the prefrontal areas of the brain. Alternatively, conditional reasoning difficulties could be present, at least partially, before polysubstance dependence onset. This population may have difficulties properly understanding social contracts in real-life settings, suggesting a potential target for clinical intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)., JOURNAL ARTICLE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

OBJECTIVE: Episodic excessive alcohol consumption (i.e. binge drinking) is now considered to be a major concern in our society. Previous studies have shown that alcohol cues can capture attentional resources in chronic alcoholic populations and that the phenomenon is associated with the development and maintenance of alcoholism. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the responses of binge drinkers to alcohol-related pictures. METHODS: Two groups of college students (n=18 in each group) were recruited for the study. One group was composed of binge drinkers and the other of controls. Each student completed a simple visual oddball paradigm in which alcohol-related and non-alcohol-related pictures (positive, neutral or negative) were presented. ERPs were recorded to explore the electrophysiological activity associated with the processing of each cue during the different cognitive steps. RESULTS: Although there were no behavioural differences between the two groups after detection of alcohol- and non-alcohol-related cues, the ERP data indicated that processing of alcohol-related stimuli was modulated by binge drinking: in the binge drinkers, the P100 amplitudes elicited by the alcohol-related pictures were significantly larger than those elicited by the non-alcohol pictures. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides evidence for an early processing enhancement, indexed by increased P100 amplitude, in binge drinkers when confronted with alcohol cues. SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that higher reactivity to alcohol cues is not a phenomenon limited to adult alcoholics, but that young binge drinkers exhibit signs of prioritizing processing related to alcohol. Prevention intervention for alcohol misuse in young people should consider approaches that address this automatic cue reactivity., JOURNAL ARTICLE, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Studies exploring neurophysiological correlates of main psychiatric disorders have commonly used event-related potentials (ERP) during a visual or an auditory oddball task. The main results concern modulations of the P3b amplitude and/or latency. The present study aims to increase the clinical sensitivity of these P3b modulations by using a more ecological oddball design, using synchronized pairs of audio-visual emotional stimuli.

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Acute and chronic alcohol intoxications have particularly deleterious consequences on physiological processes involving motor control and balance. This paper describes alcohol impairments to the central motor system networks in social and heavy drinkers and in individuals dependent on alcohol with or without neurological diseases. © 2010 Federation of European Psychophysiology Societies., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

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Like other addictions, alcoholism reflects the continuation of alcohol use despite negative consequences (e.g. an ulcer or family problems made worse by alcohol consumption). Recent cognitive theories suggest that optimal information processing related to the capacity to make decisions under uncertainty conditions is impaired either prior to the initiation of alcohol use, or it is related to the consequence of its repeated utilization. In this paper, we suggest that alcoholism may be the product of an imbalance between two separate, but interacting, cognitive registers that contribute to decision making: a reactive/automatic attentional and memory system for signaling the presence of alcohol cues in the environment and for attributing to such cues pleasure and/or excitement; and a reflective/nonautomatic system for regulating the dominant reactive/automatic response. Hyperactivity within the reactive system can override the reflective system and brain/cognitive changes induced by ethanol could lead to the disruption of self-regulation. We finally develop the idea that different patterns of imbalance between reactive and reflective systems could lead to distinct patterns of clinical impulsivity involved in the vulnerability to, the development of, and the relapse into alcoholism., JOURNAL ARTICLE, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

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Alcohol consumption may alter the behaviour of a drinker through several different mechanisms that lead to transient changes in the cognitive functioning of the drinker. In some cases, alcohol users and abusers begin to suffer from a disorder characterised by a certain "myopia" for future consequences, where the negative consequences associated with drinking (e.g. relationships, medical problems, etc.) do not lead to drinking moderation or cessation. Interestingly, this abnormal cognitive functioning is often seen in these individuals even when they are sober. This paper reviews evidence in support of the notion that the acute effects of alcohol disrupt primarily at least three key cognitive processes that are critical for flexible interaction with a changing environment: (1) the response to alcohol cues, which acquire new properties of quickly grasping attention and generating strong motivation to have a drink; (2) the individual's ability to exert control over this tendency to seek reward, and to volitionally inhibit or suppress a prepotent responding to alcohol cues; and (3) the individual's ability to detect an error when an incorrect response is initiated, or to detect action slips, so that for instance when driving a car is intended, the stopping of alcohol consumption becomes difficult. Finally, cognitive and brain electrophysiological aspects of binge drinking are discussed. In order to improve prevention, the identification of susceptibility factors to these alcohol effects should be challenged in further investigations., SCOPUS: re.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Like other addictions, alcoholism reflects the continuation of alcohol use despite negative consequences (e.g., an ulcer or family problems made worse by alcohol consumption). Recent cognitive theories suggest that optimal information processing related to the capacity to make decisions under uncertainty conditions is impaired either prior to the initiation of alcohol use, or it is related to the consequence of its repeated utilization. In this paper, we suggest that alcoholism may be the product of an imbalance between two separate, but interacting, cognitive registers that contribute to decision making: a reactive/automatic attentional and memory system for signaling the presence of alcohol cues in the environment and for attributing to such cues pleasure and/or excitement; and a reflective/nonautomatic system for regulating the dominant reactive/automatic response. Hyperactivity within the reactive system can override the reflective system and brain/cognitive changes induced by ethanol could lead to the disruption of self-regulation. We finally develop the idea that different patterns of imbalance between reactive and reflective systems could lead to distinct patterns of clinical impulsivity involved in the vulnerability to, the development of, and the relapse into alcoholism.

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Objective: Studies exploring neurophysiological correlates of main psychiatric disorders have commonly used event-related potentials (ERP) during a visual or an auditory oddball task. The main results concern modulations of the P3b amplitude and/or latency. The present study aims to increase the clinical sensitivity of these P3b modulations by using a more ecological oddball design, using synchronized pairs of audio-visual emotional stimuli. Method: Two groups of healthy participants, one composed of controls and the other of students displaying anxious and depressive tendencies completed visual, auditory and audio-visual (cross-modal) oddball tasks, in which they had to detect deviant happy and sad stimuli among neutral ones as quickly as possible. Behavioral performance and P3b ERP data were analyzed. Results: Subjects displaying anxious and depressive tendencies exhibited lower P3b amplitude than the controls, but only in the cross-modal oddball task. Conclusions: Although the two groups of subjects differed in their levels of co-morbid anxiety and depression, unimodal visual and auditory oddball tasks did not allow us to detect this difference by P3b amplitude modulations, but the cross-modal task did. Significance: These results suggest that a cross-modal oddball design should be used in future studies to increase the sensitivity of the P300 amplitude differences between healthy participants and those with clinical symptoms. © 2010 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Cognitive impairment has been associated with higher risk of alcoholism and relapse. Recent theoretical refinements have separated inhibition of dominant response and inhibition of proactive interference. We assessed the latter using a directed-forgetting procedure in 38 recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism and in 26 controls. On this task, memory performance of letter trigrams was compared when presented alone, followed by a second trigram to be recalled, then a second trigram to be forgotten (directed-forgetting condition). Individuals with alcoholism recalled more letters to be forgotten and performed worse than controls in the directed-forgetting condition, which significantly correlated with the duration of alcoholism.

Cognitive impairment has been associated with higher risk of alcoholism and relapse. Recent theoretical refinements have separated inhibition of dominant response and inhibition of proactive interference. We assessed the latter using a directed-forgetting procedure in 38 recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism and in 26 controls. On this task, memory performance of letter trigrams was compared when presented alone, followed by a second trigram to be recalled, then a second trigram to be forgotten (directed-forgetting condition). Individuals with alcoholism recalled more letters to be forgotten and performed worse than controls in the directed-forgetting condition, which significantly correlated with the duration of alcoholism., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

INTRODUCTION: Increasing knowledge of the anatomical structures and cellular processes underlying psychiatric disorders may help bridge the gap between clinical signs and basic physiological processes. Accordingly, considerable insight has been gained in recent years into a common psychiatric condition, i.e. chronic alcoholism. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We reviewed various physiological parameters that are altered in chronic alcoholic patients compared to healthy individuals--continuous electroencephalogram, oculomotor measures, cognitive event-related potentials and event-related oscillations--to identify links between these physiological parameters, altered cognitive processes and specific clinical symptoms. RESULTS: Alcoholic patients display: (1) high beta and theta power in the resting electroencephalogram, suggesting hyperarousal of their central nervous system; (2) abnormalities in smooth pursuit eye movements, in saccadic inhibition during antisaccade tasks, and in prepulse inhibition, suggesting disturbed attention modulation and abnormal patterns of prefrontal activation that may stem from the same prefrontal "inhibitory" cortical dysfunction; (3) decreased amplitude for cognitive event-related potentials situated along the continuum of information-processing, suggesting that alcoholism is associated with neurophysiological deficits at the level of the sensory cortex and not only disturbances involving associative cortices and limbic structures; and (4) decreased theta, gamma and delta oscillations, suggesting cognitive disinhibition at a functional level. DISCUSSION: The heterogeneity of alcoholic disorders in terms of symptomatology, course and outcome is the result of various pathophysiological processes that physiological parameters may help to define. These alterations may be related to precise cognitive processes that could be easily monitored neurophysiologically in order to create more homogeneous subgroups of alcoholic individuals., Journal Article, Review, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

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INTRODUCTION: Alcoholism is associated with a deficit in the processing of emotional facial expressions (EFE) and with a delayed P3b component, partially mediated by earlier perceptive deficits (P100, N170). Since alcohol dependence often occurs with depression, we aim at investigating whether classical event-related potentials (ERP) alterations observed in alcoholism are modulated or not by depression. METHODS: Four groups (controls; alcoholics; depressed; alcoholics-depressed) of 12 participants performed two different discrimination tasks, a gender and an emotional one. They had to decide as quickly as possible about the gender or the emotion displayed by facial stimuli during an ERP recording session (32 channels). Reaction times (RTs), P100, N100, N170 and P3b were recorded. RESULTS: At the behavioural level, control participants discriminated EFE (but not gender) more rapidly than the three other groups. At the ERP level, the differences observed on RTs for emotional task were neurophysiologically indexed by a delayed P3b component. This delay was associated with earlier ERP alterations (P100, N100, N170), but only in participants suffering from alcohol dependence, in association or not with depression. DISCUSSION: On the one hand, individuals with alcoholism, associated or not with a comorbid depression, were impaired in the processing of EFE. This deficit was neurophysiologically indexed by early perceptive (P100, N100, N170) and decisional (P3b) alterations. On the other hand, non-alcoholic patients with depression only exhibited P3b impairment. These results lead to potential implications concerning the usefulness of the ERP for the differential diagnosis in psychiatry, notably concerning the comorbidities in alcoholism., Journal Article, info:eu-repo/semantics/published