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Opitz A, Ghin F, Hubert J, Verster JC, Beste C, Stock AK. Alcohol intoxication, but not hangover, differentially impairs learning and automatization of complex motor response sequences. Sci Rep 2021; 11:12539. [PMID: 34131177 PMCID: PMC8206163 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-90803-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2020] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioral automatization usually makes us more efficient and less error-prone, but may also foster dysfunctional behavior like alcohol abuse. Yet, it has remained unclear whether alcohol itself causes the shift from controlled to habitual behavior commonly observed in alcohol use disorder (AUD). We thus investigated how the acute and post-acute effects of binge drinking affect the automatization of motor response sequences and the execution of automated vs. controlled motor response sequences. N = 70 healthy young men performed a newly developed automatization paradigm once sober and once after binge drinking (half of them intoxicated and half of them hungover). While we found no significant effects of alcohol hangover, acute intoxication (~ 1.2 ‰) had two dissociable effects: Firstly, it impaired the automatization of complex motor response sequence execution. Secondly, it eliminated learning effects in response selection and pre-motor planning processes. The results suggest that alcohol hangover did not affect controlled or automated processes, and disprove the assumption that alcohol intoxication generally spares or facilitates motor response sequence automatization. As these effects could be specific to the investigated explicit learning context, acute intoxication might potentially still improve the execution of pre-existing automatisms and/or the implicit acquisition of motor response sequence automatisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antje Opitz
- grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Filippo Ghin
- grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Jan Hubert
- grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Joris C. Verster
- grid.5477.10000000120346234Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands ,grid.1027.40000 0004 0409 2862Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Christian Beste
- grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany
| | - Ann-Kathrin Stock
- grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309 Dresden, Germany ,grid.4488.00000 0001 2111 7257Biopsychology, Department of Psychology, School of Science, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
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Takacs A, Stock A, Kuntke P, Werner A, Beste C. On the functional role of striatal and anterior cingulate GABA+ in stimulus-response binding. Hum Brain Mapp 2021; 42:1863-1878. [PMID: 33421290 PMCID: PMC7978129 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.25335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Revised: 12/10/2020] [Accepted: 12/13/2020] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Successful response selection relies on constantly updating stimulus-response associations. The Theory of Event Coding (TEC) proposes that perception and action are conjointly coded in event files, for which fronto-striatal networks seem to play an important role. However, the exact neurobiochemical mechanism behind event file coding has remained unknown. We investigated the functional relevance of the striatal and anterior cingulate (ACC) GABAergic system using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Specifically, the striatal and ACC concentrations of GABA+ referenced against N-acetylaspartate (NAA) were assessed in 35 young healthy males, who subsequently performed a standard event file task. As predicted by the TEC, the participants' responses were modulated by pre-established stimulus response bindings in event files. GABA+/NAA concentrations in the striatum and ACC were not correlated with the overall event binding effect. However, higher GABA+/NAA concentrations in the ACC were correlated with stronger event file binding processes in the early phase of the task. This association disappeared by the end of the task. Taken together, our findings show that striatal GABA+ levels does not seem to modulate event file binding, while ACC GABA+ seem to improve event file binding, but only as long as the participants have not yet gathered sufficient task experience. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study providing direct evidence for the role of striatal and ACC GABA+ in stimulus-response bindings and thus insights into the brain structure-specific neurobiological aspects of the TEC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam Takacs
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of MedicineTU DresdenDresdenGermany
| | - Ann‐Kathrin Stock
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of MedicineTU DresdenDresdenGermany
- Biopsychology, Department of Psychology, School of ScienceTU DresdenDresdenGermany
| | - Paul Kuntke
- Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional NeuroradiologyTU DresdenDresdenGermany
| | - Annett Werner
- Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional NeuroradiologyTU DresdenDresdenGermany
| | - Christian Beste
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of MedicineTU DresdenDresdenGermany
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Berghäuser J, Bensmann W, Zink N, Endrass T, Beste C, Stock AK. Alcohol Hangover Does Not Alter the Application of Model-Based and Model-Free Learning Strategies. J Clin Med 2020; 9:jcm9051453. [PMID: 32414137 PMCID: PMC7290484 DOI: 10.3390/jcm9051453] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/02/2020] [Revised: 05/06/2020] [Accepted: 05/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Frequent alcohol binges shift behavior from goal-directed to habitual processing modes. This shift in reward-associated learning strategies plays a key role in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorders and seems to persist during (early stages of) sobriety in at-risk drinkers. Yet still, it has remained unclear whether this phenomenon might be associated with alcohol hangover and thus also be found in social drinkers. In an experimental crossover design, n = 25 healthy young male participants performed a two-step decision-making task once sober and once hungover (i.e., when reaching sobriety after consuming 2.6 g of alcohol per estimated liter of total body water). This task allows the separation of effortful model-based and computationally less demanding model-free learning strategies. The experimental induction of alcohol hangover was successful, but we found no significant hangover effects on model-based and model-free learning scores, the balance between model-free and model-based valuation (ω), or perseveration tendencies (π). Bayesian analyses provided positive evidence for the null hypothesis for all measures except π (anecdotal evidence for the null hypothesis). Taken together, alcohol hangover, which results from a single binge drinking episode, does not impair the application of effortful and computationally costly model-based learning strategies and/or increase model-free learning strategies. This supports the notion that the behavioral deficits observed in at-risk drinkers are most likely not caused by the immediate aftereffects of individual binge drinking events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia Berghäuser
- Chair of Addiction Research, Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology TU Dresden, Chemnitzer Str. 46, 01062 Dresden, Germany; (J.B.); (T.E.)
| | - Wiebke Bensmann
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany; (W.B.); (N.Z.); (C.B.)
| | - Nicolas Zink
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany; (W.B.); (N.Z.); (C.B.)
| | - Tanja Endrass
- Chair of Addiction Research, Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology TU Dresden, Chemnitzer Str. 46, 01062 Dresden, Germany; (J.B.); (T.E.)
| | - Christian Beste
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany; (W.B.); (N.Z.); (C.B.)
| | - Ann-Kathrin Stock
- Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Fetscherstr. 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany; (W.B.); (N.Z.); (C.B.)
- Correspondence:
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Alcohol Hangover Differentially Modulates the Processing of Relevant and Irrelevant Information. J Clin Med 2020; 9:jcm9030778. [PMID: 32178460 PMCID: PMC7141188 DOI: 10.3390/jcm9030778] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2020] [Revised: 03/07/2020] [Accepted: 03/09/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Elevated distractibility is one of the major contributors to alcohol hangover-induced behavioral deficits. Yet, the basic mechanisms driving increased distractibility during hangovers are still not very well understood. Aside from impairments in attention and psychomotor functions, changes in stimulus-response bindings may also increase responding to distracting information, as suggested by the theory of event coding (TEC). Yet, this has never been investigated in the context of alcohol hangover. Therefore, we investigated whether alcohol hangover has different effects on target-response bindings and distractor-response bindings using a task that allows to differentiate these two phenomena. A total of n = 35 healthy males aged 19 to 28 were tested once sober and once hungover after being intoxicated in a standardized experimental drinking setting the night before (2.64 gr of alcohol per estimated liter of body water). We found that alcohol hangover reduced distractor-response bindings, while no such impairment was found for target-response bindings, which appeared to be unaffected. Our findings imply that the processing of distracting information is most likely not increased, but in fact decreased by hangover. This suggests that increased distractibility during alcohol hangover is most likely not caused by modulations in distractor-response bindings.
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