Alcohol-related attentional biases in recently detoxified inpatients with severe alcohol use disorder: an eye-tracking approach

BACKGROUND

Dominant theoretical models consider that attentional biases (AB) towards alcohol-related stimuli play a key role in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Their assessment has however showed high inconsistencies and has been mostly based on unreliable behavioral measures. This study evaluated the presence and extent of alcohol-related AB in recently detoxified inpatients with severe AUD by combining the visual probe task (VPT) paradigm with eye-tracking measures, known to improve the VPT reliability in subclinical populations.

METHODS

We recruited 24 patients and 27 matched healthy controls. They performed the VPT (measuring reaction time when processing visual targets preceded by alcoholic and matched non-alcoholic pictures) combined with eye-tracking measures (dwell time, first fixation direction/duration, second fixation direction) during two sessions. Estimates of internal consistency, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability were measured.

RESULTS

Patients showed shorter dwell time for alcohol cues (p = .004, d=.853) and reduced number of fixations towards alcohol after a first fixation on non-alcohol cues (p = .012, d=.758) compared to controls. These findings suggest the presence of alcohol-related avoidance AB in detoxified patients with severe AUD. The VPT achieved excellent reliability for these eye-tracking measures. Reaction times and first fixation measures did not indicate any AB pattern and showed poor reliability.

CONCLUSIONS

The VPT, when combined with dwell time and second fixation direction, constitutes a reliable method for assessing AB in detoxified patients. It showed the presence of an alcohol-related avoidance bias in this clinical population, in contradiction with the approach bias predicted by theoretical models.

Less than meets the eye: reappraising the clinical relevance of attentional bias in addiction

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in attentional bias in addiction, particularly its clinical relevance. Specifically, numerous articles claimed to demonstrate either that (1) attentional bias measured in treatment settings could predict subsequent relapse to substance use, or (2) direct modification of attentional bias reduced substance use and improved treatment outcomes. In this paper, we critically evaluate empirical studies that investigated these issues. We show that the evidence regarding both of these claims is decidedly mixed, and that many of the studies that appear to yield positive findings have serious methodological and statistical limitations. We contend that the available literature suggests that attentional bias for drug cues fluctuates within individuals because it is an output of the underlying motivational state at that moment in time, but there is no convincing evidence that it exerts a causal influence on substance use. Future research should make use of experience sampling methodology to characterise the clinical significance of fluctuations in attentional bias over time.

Attentional bias to food cues in youth with loss of control eating

Emerging data indicate that adults with binge eating may exhibit an attentional bias toward highly palatable foods, which may promote obesogenic eating patterns and excess weight gain. However, it is unknown to what extent youth with loss of control (LOC) eating display a similar bias. We therefore studied 76 youth (14.5 ± 2.3 years; 86.8% female; BMI-z 1.7 ± .73) with (n = 47) and without (n = 29) reported LOC eating. Following a breakfast to reduce hunger, youth participated in a computerized visual probe task of sustained attention that assessed reaction time to pairs of pictures consisting of high palatable foods, low palatable foods, and neutral household objects. Although sustained attentional bias did not differ by LOC eating presence and was unrelated to body weight, a two-way interaction between BMI-z and LOC eating was observed (p = .01), such that only among youth with LOC eating, attentional bias toward high palatable foods versus neutral objects was positively associated with BMI-z. These findings suggest that LOC eating and body weight interact in their association with attentional bias to highly palatable foods cues, and may partially explain the mixed literature linking attentional bias to food cues with excess body weight.