Memory biases in alcohol use disorder: enhanced memory for contexts associated with alcohol prospectively predicts alcohol use outcomes.

ABSTRACT: Memory for prior drinking experiences may powerfully drive later alcohol use in familiar drinking contexts, yet we know little about what patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) remember of alcohol-related episodes. Although animal and theoretical models of addiction emphasize the importance of different memory systems for understanding maladaptive use, clinical research parsing what AUD patients remember from alcohol-related episodes is lacking. The current study applied a novel memory task in which moderate drinkers (N = 30) and treatment-seeking individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD: N = 29) encoded associations between photographs of objects (alcoholic beverages and neutral items) and photographs of neutral scenes. At least 24 h later, two types of memory were assessed: item memory (object recognition) and associative memory (cued recognition of scenes associated with objects). To assess which memories predicted drinking, real-world behavior was assessed in patients with AUD at baseline and for 4 weeks following memory tests. Despite demographic differences, the results showed broadly impaired item memory in AUD compared with moderate drinkers (p < 0.001), but enhanced associative memory for scenes paired with alcohol (p = 0.015). These associative memory biases were especially pronounced for stimuli rated as more affectively salient. Furthermore, stronger but less detailed memory for alcohol-related associations (i.e., choosing the correct scene but the incorrect photograph) significantly predicted heavier baseline (p = 0.002) and higher subsequent (p = 0.01) drinking in patients with AUD. These findings reveal a novel alcohol-related memory bias in AUD, and uncover the importance of associative memory for understanding real-world heavy alcohol use.

SUBMITTER: Goldfarb EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7297955 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature