Rodrigues H, Soares S, Rodrigues P, Martins A and Maia L
Aveiro University, Portugal
University of Minho, Portugal
University of Beira Interior, Portugal
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Neurol Neurophysiol
According to current theories related to addictive behavior, heroin and other substances users tend to focus their attention to environmental stimuli associated with the drug use (substance) and commonly referred as Attentional Bias (AB). Given the lack of studies aiming to study the AB in populations with a history of dependencies (e.g., heroin), and taking in knowledge the approach of cognitive load of Lavie (1995), we performed a study to evaluate the role of cognitive load in the attentional processing of stimulus that are motivationally appetitive, such as drugs (e.g., heroin) in subjects with dependency record (treatment group and high therapeutic group) compared to non-consumers subjects. The results showed only high interference in the ACC task condition (longer RTs and lower TA), which was found apart of the type of stimulus or group. It was also found less interference with letter discrimination in those conditions in which were not presented any distractive image (apart of its emotional content). At last, the results presented higher interference in the high therapeutic group (RTâ??s longer) compared to other groups. These results contradict the majority of studies developed to assess selective attention in addicted populations that have consistently shown that exists an AB in this population.
E-mail: humberto.rodrigues@neuropsyjournal.com
