Authors: Catharine Montgomery Matt Field Amanda M Atkinson Jon C Cole Andrew J Goudie Harry R Sumnall
Publish Date: 2010/03/30
Volume: 210, Issue: 3, Pages: 365-375
Abstract
Drug and alcohol users have an ‘attentional bias’ for substancerelated cues which is likely to reflect the incentivemotivational properties of those cues Furthermore administration of an alcohol preload increases attentional bias for alcohol and tobaccorelated cues in heavy drinkers and tobacco smokers respectively The present study investigated attentional bias for cocaine cues in cocaine users and nonusers following administration of either alcohol or placeboThirtytwo regular cocaine users and 40 nonusers took part Participants were administered alcohol or placebo and administration was double blind After drink administration a Visual Probe task and Modified Stroop task were used to assess attentional bias Subjective craving and alcohol outcome expectancies were also measuredThere was a significant interaction between group and drink type on the visual probe task indicating that cocaine users who had received alcohol had increased attentional bias for cocaine pictures compared to nonusers and cocaine users who received placebo The cocaine Stroop revealed no differences between cocaine users and nonusers and no effects of alcohol in either groupAlcohol preload in regular cocaine users increases attentional bias for cocaine cues However cocaine users who received placebo did not show attentional bias for cocaine stimuli Future research should investigate the effects of alcohol preload on attentional bias in cocainedependent individuals
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