Volume 8 - 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00498 This article is part of the Research TopicPrefrontal control across psychiatric disordersView all 11 articles Korsakoff syndrome (KS) is a neurological state mostly caused by alcohol-dependence and leading to disproportionate episodic memory deficits KS patients present more severe anterograde amnesia than Alcohol-Dependent Subjects (ADS) which led to the continuum hypothesis postulating a progressive increase in brain and cognitive damages during the evolution from ADS to KS This hypothesis has been extensively examined for memory but is still debated for other abilities EF have up to now been explored by unspecific tasks in KS and few studies explored their interactions with memory Exploring EF in KS by specific tasks based on current EF models could thus renew the exploration of the continuum hypothesis This paper will propose a research program aiming at: (1) clarifying the extent of executive dysfunctions in KS by tasks focusing on specific EF subcomponents; (2) determining the differential EF deficits in ADS and KS; (3) exploring EF-memory interactions in KS with innovative tasks this exploration will test the continuum hypothesis beyond memory it will propose new rehabilitation tools focusing on the EF specifically impaired in KS The cardinal KS symptom is a permanent anterograde and retrograde amnesia and notably executive functions (EF) known to be highly impaired in alcohol-dependence After reviewing earlier neuropsychological explorations of KS this paper will underline the importance of further exploring EF in this pathology with three crucial aims: (1) clarifying the extent of executive dysfunctions in KS; (2) determining the differential deficits across specific EF in ADS and KS; (3) exploring the interactions between EF and memory impairments in KS This thorough exploration might lead to a new model of cognitive impairments in KS which will have crucial implications at fundamental (i.e. revaluation of the continuum hypothesis proposing the continuity in the impairments between ADS and KS) and clinical (i.e. new neuropsychological rehabilitation perspectives) levels The memory impairments described in KS thus seem to be at least partly related to EF impairments most studies focus on memory and the exploration of EF deficits in KS should be deepened it is now accepted that KS have disproportionate memory impairment across episodic memory tasks whereas there is no clear-cut opinion about (dis)continuity between ADS and KS for other cognitive functions There is thus insufficient evidence to determine whether there is a continuum of EF impairment from ADS to KS the ability to transfer cognitive resources across tasks; (2) updating the ability to replace irrelevant information by pertinent new ones; (3) inhibition the control ability preventing a non-pertinent automatic or dominant response to occur; (4) planning the self-regulation based on a strategic elaboration of the successive stages in non-routine situations; (5) long-term memory strategic retrieval the selection of correct information in memory as each study focused on a limited range of tasks the current data do not offer a comparison of the deficit across EF these previous studies were based on a correlational approach using separate explorations of EF and memory impairments and not on the direct exploration of their interactions These results clearly demonstrate the implication of EF in some memory processes On the basis of studies presented above and questions held in abeyance, the possible line of approach for future studies will now be described by showing how EF may constitute a relevant research focus in the exploration of memory deficits in KS. This research approach is summarized in Figure 1B This systematic exploration of EF subcomponents will clarify the differential deficit across EF in KS identifying impaired and potentially preserved subcomponents it can be hypothesized that inhibition subcomponent will show a gradual decline from ADS to KS a continuum not necessarily observed for other EF this method will simultaneously manipulate the two processes (inhibition and memory retrieval) in the same task to directly observe their interactions the EF-memory interactions should be explored by innovative tasks combining specific EF subcomponent and memory demands The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest Pierre Maurage (Research Associate) is founded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.N.R.S. 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January that the agency’s Portuguese executive director is already under investigation by the bloc’s anti-fraud office for alleged misconduct in procurement and human resources and possible breaches of data protection rules He contests those charges and the allegations made in the new documents “I deny all of the allegations made in the emails and emphasize that OLAF’s investigation is ongoing for over eight months no accusations against any particular staff have been made or preliminary measures been requested or actioned to date,” said Carreira “The presumption of innocence of any staff member until proven otherwise is a fundamental tenet of the EU and is fully applied at EASO” — José Carreira But despite the OLAF investigation — which is expected to run until July — the documents suggest that severe problems continue at the agency the agency’s head of human resources unit explained his “matured and conscious decision” to resign from his position “The rule of law is absent in this agency to an extent that nothing that could have happened in an EU institution compares what is taking place here,” he alleged “The state of delusion of the persons who are responsible for this situation is unprecedented as much as the culture of irresponsibility in this agency is pervasive.” an alumnus from the French Ecole Nationale d’Administration the elite college that French President Emmanuel Macron also attended implored his colleagues not to “implement illegal orders even if the pressure on you is high.” He also urged them to resist “psychological violence that is pervasive in this institution and which is considered by some to be a ‘normal’ way of managing staff.” The former HR head alleged that people who spoke up about problems at the agency had been subjected to a range of intimidatory tactics extorting false testimonies [and] paying lawyers to sue staff members.” “Problems at the agency can pose several risks in terms of reputation and efficiency but also in financial terms” — EU official Maurage’s allegations post-date measures taken by EASO’s management board to restrict Carreira’s duties the chairman and deputy chairman of EASO’s management board wrote to staff to say that the executive director could not take decisions on a range of human resources and procurement issues without Taucher’s endorsement in writing The letter said the measures were aimed at “protecting your interest as members of the staff and ensures that the Agency will continue to function as smoothly as possible.” a spokesperson for EASO confirmed that at a management board meeting on February 27-28 “a decision on interim measures was taken in order to further strengthening [sic] the good governance of the agency in specific areas most notably recruitment and procurement.” “EASO emphasizes that these temporary interim measures are precautionary and do not imply any malpractice known to the agency to its executive director or to its management board but rather are a safeguard which has been put in place until the outcome of the OLAF investigation,” the spokesperson added The measures appear not to have yet had the desired effect with other senior staff voicing concerns after they were put in place wrote in an email to staff dated April 27 that “I have already communicated to my Executive Director [Carreira] I will only come back to EASO if he’s dismissed.” he accused Carreira of lying to managers: “We are confronted to [sic] a situation where our Executive Director does not always tell the truth to his managers” and stressed that “inefficiencies I have found show the lack of effective and efficient internal controls in EASO.” And in another email to staff dated March 7 alleged that his “professional isolation” is evidence of “harassment” as a result of calls he had made for rules to be respected He said that he has “vociferously and repetitively” raised procurement issues with Carreira that he warned could potentially expose EASO to “millions in damages” if they are brought before the courts the agency’s former Head of Operations Department Joanna Darmanin — a Maltese official who has worked in the European Commission since 2004 — was dismissed by Carreira last year She was the second highest ranking staff member after Carreira who is grade AD 14 (equating to basic salary of around €14,000 a month) She told POLITICO she has since launched a case against the agency for unfair dismissal at the European Court of Justice “The agency reiterates that OLAF visits and investigations are a normal practice of good governance aimed at safeguarding the public interest and public funds” — EASO spokesperson Carreira said: “These emails came from three specific employees and do not in any way constitute an objective or authoritative analysis of the state of affairs at the agency.” “I have made every effort to work constructively with all my staff since taking up my post and while I respect the divergent opinions of all my staff members I am confident 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Metrics details Alcohol-dependence is associated with cognitive and biological alterations Although overwhelming in clinical settings and involved in relapse these social impairments have received little attention from researchers brain alterations related to social exclusion have not been explored in alcohol-dependence Our primary purpose was to determine the neural correlates of social exclusion feelings in this population 44 participants (22 abstinent alcohol-dependent patients and 22 paired controls) played a virtual game (‘cyberball’) during fMRI recording Brain areas involved in social exclusion were identified and the functional connectivity between these areas was explored using psycho-physiological interactions (PPI) Results showed that while both groups presented dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activations during social exclusion alcohol-dependent participants exhibited increased insula and reduced frontal activations (in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) as compared with controls Alcohol-dependence was also associated with persistent dACC and parahippocampal gyrus activations in re-inclusion PPI analyses showed reduced frontocingulate connectivity during social exclusion in alcohol-dependence Alcohol-dependence is thus linked with increased activation in areas eliciting social exclusion feelings (dACC–insula) and with impaired ability to inhibit these feelings (indexed by reduced frontal activations) Altered frontal regulation thus appears implied in the interpersonal alterations observed in alcohol-dependence which seem reinforced by impaired frontocingulate connectivity This first exploration of the neural correlates of interpersonal problems in alcohol-dependence could initiate the development of a social neuroscience of addictive states and the neural correlates of interpersonal impairments remain totally unexplored we hypothesized that dACC activations would continue in alcohol-dependence after the exclusion period diagnosed with alcohol-dependence according to the DSM-IV criteria were recruited during the third week of their detoxification treatment (Saint-Luc University Hospital They had all abstained from alcohol for at least 14 days and were free of medication and of any other psychiatric diagnosis as assessed by an exhaustive semi-structured psychiatric interview The mean alcohol consumption among ADS just before detoxification was 19.6 drinks per day (SD=10.59) The mean number of previous detoxification treatments was 3.8 (SD=5.3) and the mean duration of alcohol-dependence was 12.9 years (SD=10.2) and education with a control group composed of 22 male volunteers who were free of any personal or family history of psychiatric disorder and whose personal alcohol consumption was lower than 15 drinks per week (mean daily consumption=1.54 (SD=1.15)) Control subjects (CS) abstained from any alcohol consumption during at least 3 days before testing Exclusion criteria for both groups included major medical/neurological impairments and polysubstance past or present abuse (including marijuana) Each participant had normal or corrected-to-normal vision Education level was the number of years of education completed since starting primary school After complete description of the study to participants Participants were paid 40 euros for their participation The study was approved by the ethical committee of the Catholic University of Louvain Illustration of the four successive experimental conditions: (1) implicit social exclusion (ISE); (2) first inclusion (INCL1); (3) explicit social exclusion (ESE) the central experimental condition eliciting social exclusion feelings; and (4) second inclusion (INCL2) participants were not informed of the transition between the successive conditions Each condition lasted for 125 s (50 volumes) Computer players’ speed varied randomly between 500 ms and 2 s and was adapted to obtain 100 throws per condition If the participant did not throw the ball within 2.5 s it was automatically thrown to a random player The first 10 volumes of each condition were excluded from analyses (which relied on 40 volumes per condition) to avoid overlap between the activations associated with each condition The two main experimental contrasts were: (a) ESE–ISE isolating the cerebral correlates of social exclusion feelings as ESE and ISE are perceptually identical (ie participant knows he is not participating because of technical reasons he is explicitly excluded by other players eliciting exclusion feelings; (b) INCL2–INCL1 exploring the persistence of exclusion feelings after exclusion ends INCL1 and INCL2 are perceptually identical (ie the participant being included with a 50% probability of getting the ball) but in INCL1 the participant has not yet been explicitly excluded by others whereas INCL2 is just following the ESE condition to check the presence of exclusion feelings participants answered (after the last condition) a manipulation check scale (from 1 ‘Absolutely not’ to 7 ‘Extremely’) assessing ostracism (ie ‘I felt excluded by other participants’) Functional images were acquired with 3T magnetic resonance imager and 8-channel phased array head coil (Achieva Philips Medical Systems) as series of blood-oxygen-sensitive T2*-weighted echo-planar image volumes slice thickness=3.5 mm with no interslice gap Each volume comprised 36 axial slices acquired in ascending interleaved sequence Recording comprised one 208 volumes run (50 volumes per condition interleaved by 2 volumes transition periods) High-resolution anatomical images were also acquired using a T1-weighted 3D turbo fast field echo sequence with inversion recovery prepulse (150 contiguous 1 mm axial slices Data were processed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM8 Functional images were corrected for slice acquisition delays; realigned to the first scan to correct within- and between-run motion; coregistered with anatomical scan; normalized to the MNI template using an affine fourth-degree β-spline interpolation transformation and a voxel size of 2 × 2 × 2 mm3 after the skull and bones had been removed with a mask based on individual anatomical images; and spatially smoothed using a 10 mm FWHM Gaussian kernel Condition-related changes in regional brain activity were estimated for each participant by a general linear model in which the responses evoked by each condition were modeled by a standard hemodynamic response function Two main contrasts of interest were computed at the individual level: (a) explicit exclusion as compared with implicit exclusion (ESE–ISE); (b) re-inclusion as compared with initial inclusion (INCL2–INCL1) Significant cerebral activations were then examined at the group level in random-effect analyses using one-sample t-tests with statistical threshold set to p<0.05 FWE corrected for multiple comparisons using cluster size and extending to at least 20 contiguous voxels Between-group comparisons were conducted using two-sample t-tests with the same statistical threshold to avoid the overestimation of correlations due to the non-independence error One-way analyses of variance showed that groups did not significantly differ for age (mean ADS=47.2 (SD=11.04); mean CS=45.1 (SD=10.69); F(1 42)=0.41,NS) and education (mean ADS=13.91 (SD=3.53); mean CS=14.59 (SD=3.24); F(1 Post-experiment manipulation check confirmed that the task elicited social exclusion as participants reported marked exclusion feelings (significantly higher than minimal score indexing no exclusion The mean exclusion feelings score was 3.73 (SD=1.61) among ADS and 3.59 (SD=1.73) among CS The ESE–ISE contrast showed the brain activations associated with social exclusion feelings (Table 1a and c and Figure 2): Group comparison for social exclusion (explicit social exclusion (ESE)–implicit social exclusion (ISE) on the left) and re-inclusion (second inclusion (INCL2)–first inclusion (INCL1) showing the brain areas presenting significantly reduced (in blue) or increased (in red) activations among alcohol-dependent participants (N=22) as compared with controls (N=22); p<0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons at cluster size β-Values for each group in each brain area are presented in graphs on the right; error bars indicate standard deviations CS: Significant activations were found in the right VPFC ADS: Significant activations were found in the right dACC Group comparison: Social exclusion elicited more right insula activation among ADS than CS whereas CS had higher right VPFC and left MFG activations than ADS The INCL2–INCL1 contrast showed the brain areas activated during re-inclusion after social exclusion, as compared with first inclusion period (Table 1b and c and Figure 2): ADS: Significant activations were found in the left dACC and parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) Group comparison: Re-inclusion after exclusion led to higher left dACC and PHG activations among ADS than among CS no significant group differences were found for contrasts comparing inclusion conditions with the non-inclusion baseline (ie INCL1–ISE INCL2–ISE) nor for the INCL1–INCL2 contrast Behavioral–fMRI correlations: The intensity of subjective exclusion feelings (evaluated by the post-experiment scale) was positively correlated with dACC activation in both groups (CS: r=0.528 subjective exclusion feelings were (a) positively correlated with insula activation among ADS (r=0.431 NS); (b) negatively correlated with VPFC among CS (r=−0.495 Correlations between brain areas: In the control group significant positive correlations were found between dACC significant negative correlations were found between dACC but no significant correlations appeared with frontal areas PPI showed functional connectivity with dACC during social exclusion (Table 2): CS: dACC presented a significant positive connectivity with bilateral STG and a significant negative connectivity with right VPFC ADS: dACC presented a significant positive connectivity with left PHG and right STG and a significant negative connectivity with left postcentral gyrus Group comparison: Positive connectivity was higher among CS in right STG and in left thalamus Negative connectivity was higher among CS in bilateral MFG the re-inclusion condition (INCL2) extends earlier results by suggesting that dACC and frontal activations are directly linked with exclusion feelings as these activations rapidly disappear among CS when exclusion ends (no activation was found in this group for INCL2–INCL1) and this inability to regulate social exclusion could be common to different psychiatric states these pregenual ACC activations during re-inclusion reinforce the hypothesis of a persistent social pain among ADS this study did not include a control non-social condition and these enhanced dACC and PHG activations among ADS could thus also partly be due to negative emotions related with exclusion rather than to persistent social exclusion feelings themselves PPI analyses confirmed the reduced frontal regulation among ADS as the negative frontocingulate functional connectivity observed among CS is absent among ADS these results strongly suggest that alcohol-dependence is associated with increased activation of the cerebral network related to social exclusion feelings (ie dACC and PHG overactivations during and after social exclusion) and reduced the ability to regulate them (ie reduced frontal activations and impaired dACC–frontal functional connectivity) These results appear specifically related to social exclusion as no group differences were found in other contrasts in line with earlier studies based on this paradigm the present one did not include a control non-social experimental condition and future studies will thus have to confirm that the cerebral alterations observed here among ADS are indeed related to the social processes involved in the task and not to more general factors like increased negative emotions being among the first ones to use PPI analyses in alcohol-dependence extends these previous results by identifying the functional correlates of structural white matter impairments: these impairments notably lead to altered frontocingulate connectivity hampering the cognitive regulation of social exclusion feelings and potentially increasing relapse risk and we underlined the interest of applying social neuroscience paradigms to alcohol-dependence our main contribution is to show that social exclusion feelings in alcohol-dependence are associated with: (a) increased activations in areas usually associated with social exclusion feelings (dACC during and after exclusion; (b) reduced activations of the frontal areas regulating these feelings This suggests that interpersonal difficulties rely on a double brain alteration: overactivations in areas related to exclusion feelings and underactivations in areas regulating these feelings This imbalance impairs social exclusion regulation the impaired frontocingulate 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More In Memoriam > Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors Volume 8 - 2014 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00405 Binge drinking is a widespread alcohol-consumption pattern in youth and is linked to cognitive consequences other crucial factors remain less explored in binge drinking and notably the emotional-automatic processes Dual-process model postulates that addictive disorders are not only due to impaired reflective system (involved in deliberate behaviors) but rather to an imbalance between under-activated reflective system and over-activated affective-automatic one (involved in impulsive behaviors) This proposal has been confirmed in alcohol-dependence The observation of comparable impairments in binge drinking and alcohol-dependence led to the “continuum hypothesis,” suggesting similar deficits across different alcohol-related disorders applying the dual-process model to binge drinking might renew the understanding of this continuum hypothesis A three-axes research agenda will be proposed exploring: (1) the affective-automatic system in binge drinking; (2) the systems’ interactions and imbalance in binge drinking; (3) the evolution of this imbalance in the transition between binge drinking and alcohol-dependence These recent data led to the proposal that binge drinking is centrally associated with high-level cognitive functions impairments and can thus be described as a disorder of the reflective system responsible for controlled behaviors binge drinking might thus also be associated with hyper-activation of this affective-automatic system underlying the uncontrolled and emotional behaviors the integrity of this system in binge drinking has not been experimentally tested if the dual-process model is now well-validated in alcohol-dependence it has not been directly tested in earlier stages of alcohol-related problems The main aim of this paper is thus to underline the need to test the validity of the dual-process model in binge drinking in order to have a better understanding of this phenomenon and to directly explore the continuum hypothesis After having described the theoretical framework of this model and its validity for alcohol-dependence a literature review of the data available concerning impairments in executive control among binge drinkers will be proposed before reporting the few evidences concerning the deficits for automatic and emotional processes We will then propose a research agenda centrally focused on three experimental axes: (1) the specific evaluation of affective-automatic system in binge drinking; (2) the elucidation of the interactions between reflective and affective-automatic systems and their imbalance in binge drinking; (3) the building of a developmental perspective the exploration of the evolution of this imbalance across the successive stages of alcohol-dependence from early abuse in binge drinking to chronic misuse in alcohol-dependence limbic network for the affective-automatic system and prefrontal network for the reflective system Dual-process model has thus been largely validated in alcohol-dependence and constitutes a reliable theoretical framework this model has received very little support from studies exploring other alcohol-consumption patterns and it is thus unknown whether it is also valid for other alcohol-related problems the reflective system has been tested among binge drinkers by exploring executive functions but the alterations of the affective-automatic system and the potential imbalance between systems remain to be explored The scarcity of the data exploring the systems related to dual-process model thus currently hampers to generalize this model to binge drinking The available data thus clearly suggest that binge drinking is associated with important impairments of the reflective system the scarcity of longitudinal studies and the absence of direct comparison between binge drinkers and alcohol-dependent individuals prevent the elaboration of a developmental perspective on the reflective system’s deficits across the successive stages of alcohol-related problems and the validity of the continuum hypothesis is still to be tested Alcohol-dependence is thus associated with over-reactivity of the affective-automatic system but a systematic exploration of this system is lacking in binge drinking even when the total amount of alcohol consumed per week is identical Binge drinking thus seems to constitute a particularly harmful habit but this proposal is still to be explored for the automatic system This preliminary evidence suggests that binge drinking might be associated with impairments of the affective system but further studies should confirm and extend these data The application of dual-process model in alcohol-dependence led to an in-depth renewal of this field, but its validity has not been explored in binge drinking. Indeed, several theoretical models of binge drinking have been proposed (e.g., Oei and Morawska, 2004; Elliott and Ainsworth, 2012) but they were focused on the psychological variables predicting binge drinking and did not take into account the cognitive and cerebral consequences of this drinking habit and the influence of these deficits on the evolution of alcohol consumption the impairments related to the affective-automatic system are still to be explored Two major limits currently hamper to obtain a reliable theoretical background to apply dual-process model to binge drinking: first the interactions between reflective and affective-automatic systems are unknown and second no study directly compared the systems’ deficits in binge drinking and alcohol-dependence three main research axes will now be proposed to end up in the emergence of a new model of binge drinking capitalizing on the dual-process perspective These three axes will combine cross-sectional (Axes 1 and 2) and longitudinal (Axis 3) designs to respectively explore: (1) The affective-automatic system in binge drinking: as state above the affective correlates of binge drinking remain nearly unexplored A first part of this axis will thus be to offer a precise exploration of the automatic system over-activation by proposing a multi-evaluation using various validated tasks (e.g. attentional bias) to assess the impairments presented by binge drinkers as compared to non-drinkers A second part will be to explore the emotional system in binge drinking future studies should test whether these processes are already impaired in adolescents and young adults binge drinkers by means of a comprehensive exploration ranging from basic emotional abilities (e.g. facial or vocal emotion decoding) to complex affective skills (e.g. emotional intelligence) and interpersonal aptitudes (e.g. As emotional impairments have been found to play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of alcohol-dependence understanding the early alterations of this affective system and its implications in the first stages of alcohol-dependence is required the in-depth exploration of this hypothesis can only be done by longitudinal approaches (3) The evolution of this imbalance across the successive stages of alcohol-dependence: while several studies have supported the continuum hypothesis by showing that binge drinkers display similar impairments than alcohol-dependent individuals regarding cognitive and emotional abilities, but also at the cerebral level (Maurage et al., 2009, 2012; Sanhueza et al., 2011) no study directly explored this transition between binge drinking and alcohol-dependence within a cohort of participants This third research axis will use a longitudinal approach with multiple testing sessions starting in early adolescence to explore the mutual influences between binge drinking habits and systems’ impairments This longitudinal perspective will bring two main insights as compared to cross-sectional one: first by starting before the onset of alcohol consumption it will clarify the existence of pre-existing cognitive-emotional deficits in binge drinking as this exploration will be carried on through adolescence and adulthood it will explore the evolution of the deficits during the modification of drinking habits (i.e. the potential reduction of these deficits when binge drinking stops and conversely their progression when binge drinking evolves toward alcohol-dependence) this would constitute the first direct exploration of the transition between binge drinking and alcohol-dependence allowing to determine the crucial predictors of this transition our proposal is that an in-depth exploration of the dual-process model in binge drinking might totally renew this model by adding a developmental perspective it would notably renew the continuum hypothesis by extending it toward affective-automatic system’s deficits and systems’ interactions it might lead to the creation of prophylactic rehabilitation programs proposing early interventions to re-equilibrate the balance between reflective and affective-automatic systems at early stages of excessive alcohol consumption Pierre Maurage (Research Associate) is founded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FRS-FNRS Concurrent binge drinking and depression among Canadian youth: prevalence Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text The impact of adolescent binge drinking and sustained abstinence on affective state Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Adolescent development of the neural circuitry for thinking about intentions Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Teenage drinking and the onset of alcohol dependence: a cohort study over seven years Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Effects of alcohol on psychomotor performance and perceived impairment in heavy binge social drinkers 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Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Genetic and environmental influences on the development of alcoholism CrossRef Full Text Reversing the sequence: reducing alcohol consumption by overcoming alcohol attentional bias Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Attentional bias in addictive behaviors: a review of its development Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Rapid approach responses to alcohol cues in heavy drinkers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text A meta-analytic investigation of the relationship between attentional bias and subjective craving in substance abuse Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Decision making and binge drinking: a longitudinal study Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Grüsser Alcohol craving in problem and occasional alcohol drinkers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Decoding the neural substrates of reward-related decision making with functional MRI Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Binge drinking and sex: effects on mood and cognitive function in healthy young volunteers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Pathways to alcohol-induced brain impairment in young people: a review Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Age at drinking onset and alcohol dependence: age at onset CrossRef Full Text White matter characterization of adolescent binge drinking with and without co-occurring marijuana use: a 3-year investigation Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Neurotoxic effects of alcohol in adolescence Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use College Students and Adults Ages 19–50 A working memory bias for alcohol-related stimuli depends on drinking score Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Impaired emotional facial expression recognition in alcoholism compared with obsessive-compulsive disorder and normal controls Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Effects of a persistent binge drinking pattern of alcohol consumption in young people: a follow-up study using event-related potentials Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Binge drinking influences the cerebral processing of vocal affective bursts in young adults Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Face processing in chronic alcoholism: a specific deficit for emotional features Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Disrupted regulation of social exclusion in alcohol-dependence: an fMRI study Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Latent deleterious effects of binge drinking over a short period of time revealed only by electrophysiological 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preliminary study of functional magnetic resonance imaging response during verbal encoding among adolescent binge drinkers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Neural correlates of verbal learning in adolescent alcohol and marijuana users: fMRI in adolescent users Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Binge drinking differentially affects adolescent male and female brain morphometry Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Risk taking in adolescence: new perspectives from brain and behavioral science CrossRef Full Text Blood oxygen level dependent response and spatial working memory in adolescents with alcohol use disorders Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Explicit and implicit alcohol-related cognitions and the prediction of future drinking in adolescents Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text cognitive performance and mood in a population of young social drinkers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Processing of affective stimuli in alcoholism CrossRef Full Text Individual differences in acute alcohol impairment of inhibitory control predict ad libitum alcohol consumption Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Cognitive bias modification and cognitive control training in addiction and related psychopathology: mechanisms CrossRef Full Text Challenging implicit and explicit alcohol-related cognitions in young heavy drinkers Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Abnormal affective decision making revealed in adolescent binge drinkers using a functional magnetic resonance imaging study Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text The neurocognitive effects of alcohol on adolescents and college students Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or 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Volume 8 - 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00984 This article is part of the Research TopicBinge Drinking in the Adolescent and Young Brain, volume IView all 22 articles Binge drinking is an alcohol consumption pattern with various psychological and cognitive consequences As binge drinking showed qualitatively comparable cognitive impairments to those reported in alcohol-dependence a continuum hypothesis suggests that this habit would be a first step toward alcohol-related disorders alcohol-dependence is also characterized by large-scale deficits in emotional processing and these abilities have scarcely been explored in binge drinking most often based on multiple modalities (e.g. yet represents a crucial ability for efficient interpersonal communication and social integration The present study is the first exploration of crossmodal emotional processing in binge drinking in order to test whether binge drinkers already present the emotional impairments described among alcohol-dependent patients Twenty binge drinkers and 20 matched controls performed an experimental task requiring the identification of two emotions (happiness or anger) presented in two modalities (visual or auditory) within three conditions (unimodal crossmodal congruent or crossmodal incongruent) In accordance with previous research in binge drinking and alcohol-dependence this study was based on two main hypotheses binge drinkers would present a reduced facilitation effect (i.e. classically indexed in healthy populations by faster reaction times when two congruent modalities are presented simultaneously) binge drinkers would have higher difficulties to inhibit interference in incongruent modalities Results showed no significant difference between groups in emotional decoding ability appeared slower than binge drinkers in recognizing facial expressions also leading to a stronger facilitation effect when the two modalities were presented simultaneously findings did not show a disrupted facilitation effect in binge drinkers whom also presented preserved performance to inhibit incongruence during emotional decoding The current results thus suggest that binge drinkers do not demonstrate a deficit for emotional processing These results imply that binge drinking might not be characterized by impairments for the identification of primary emotions which could also indicate that these emotional processing abilities are well-preserved at early stages of excessive alcohol consumption for which studies are strongly lacking in binge drinking as it notably allows efficient interpersonal life and social integration this paucity of research and data about emotional processing in binge drinking hampers to have an exhaustive picture of the deficits related to this alcohol consumption pattern and of the continuum hypothesis extension toward non-cognitive factors This result thus means that alcohol-dependent patients did not take advantage of the cross-modality to perform emotional decoding Beyond their impairment for unimodal emotion processing alcohol-dependent individuals thus present massive deficits in crossmodal ecological situations Results showed that binge drinkers had an impaired identification of emotions together with a reorganization of brain activity (i.e. reduced activation of bilateral superior temporal gyrus and increased activation of right middle frontal gyrus) these results suggest that binge drinking might also be characterized by impairments in emotional processing As this research field appears almost unexplored an in-depth investigation of emotional deficits in binge drinking is needed This should be made with a more ecological paradigm using crossmodal stimuli which are the rule rather than the exception in real life social interactions The aim of this study was thus twofold: first an essential ability for everyday life social interactions was altered among student binge drinkers; second to explore whether the continuum hypothesis could be extended toward affective abilities The current study proposed the exploration of the behavioral performance of binge drinkers and control participants in an emotion detection task implying (a) two emotions differing in their valence (happiness and anger) (b) two modalities of emotional processing (visual and auditory) further investigated by the facilitation effect as binge drinking was previously associated with inhibition deficits this study also evaluated the crossmodal inhibition effect requiring to inhibit the interference presented in one of the two modalities) we hypothesized a specific impairment for the facilitation effect in binge drinkers as well as a reduced ability to inhibit non-pertinent modality in incongruent crossmodal situations Participants received a compensation of 10€ for their participation The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Université catholique de Louvain and carried out according to the Declaration of Helsinki Demographic and psychological measures for Binge Drinkers (BD) and Control Participants (CP): mean (SD) The emotional crossmodal task assessed emotional detection from emotional facial and vocal stimuli in separate (unimodal) or simultaneous (crossmodal) ways the crossmodal conditions presenting identical (crossmodal congruent; e.g. a happy face with a happy voice) or opposite (crossmodal incongruent; e.g. a happy face with an angry voice) emotions Participants were in a quiet room and placed at 60 cm from the screen They had to decide as quickly and accurately as possible the emotional content displayed by pressing the appropriate response key with their dominant hand (i.e. morph between happiness and anger; Morph 2.5. Gryphon Software Corp.) was used in order to obtain similar difficulty in the two unimodal conditions (face and voice) which is a necessary requisite to observe a facilitation effect in the crossmodal congruent condition the morphing level 40–60 was chosen because it led to similar RT in visual and auditory conditions The morphing level was thus set at 60% happiness – 40% anger for happiness faces and 40% happiness – 60% anger for anger faces The task finally included five men and five women faces as well as five male and five female voices A total of 600 trials were displayed into three blocks (i.e. the two first blocks being presented with pseudo-randomized order across participants whereas the experiment always ended with the crossmodal condition Each trial started with a fixation cross presented for 500 ms or both) for another 500 ms and followed by a blank screen for 2000 ms Accuracy Scores (AS; percentage of correct responses) and RT were recorded Only correct responses were considered for the RT analyses displaying the three possible conditions (A the two modalities (face and voice) and the two emotions (happiness and anger) Figure also illustrates two examples of female faces (conditions A,C) and an example of male face (condition B) for both happiness (morphed with 60% of happiness and 40% of anger Left) and anger (morphed with 60% of anger and 40% of happiness All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software package (version 21.0) and the significance was set at an alpha level of 0.05 Comparisons between groups were first performed on demographic performance in the emotion detection task were compared via 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with Group (CP and BD) as between-subjects factor and Emotion (Happiness and Anger) and Crossmodal Incongruent) as within-subjects factors were performed between task performance and alcohol-related variables (i.e. Characteristics of each group are reported in Table 1 No significant group differences were found for age [t(38) = 0.27 significantly differed on all alcohol-related variables including three of the four drinking motives (i.e. Mean performance and RT for each experimental condition are reported in Table 2 Accuracy Scores (AS; percentage of correct answers) and Reaction Times (RT; in milliseconds) for Binge Drinkers (BD) and Control Participants (CP) in each experimental condition (i.e. and conditions) of the crossmodal emotional identification task: mean (SD) Three main effects were identified: Emotion [F(1,38) = 7.39 happiness leading to higher accuracies than anger; Modality [F(1,38) = 194.90 voices leading to better performance than faces; Condition [F(2,76) = 21.86 unimodal trials leading to better accuracies than crossmodal congruent [t(39) = 2.79 p = 0.008] and crossmodal incongruent [t(39) = 6.27 and crossmodal congruent trials leading to better accuracies than incongruent trials [t(39) = 5.28 An interaction between Emotion and Modality [F(1,38) = 29.92 These effects were qualified by a triple interaction between Emotion there was no difference in the identification of happiness and anger happiness was better identified than anger in the face Modality [t(39) = 3.79 p = 0.001] but not in the voice Modality [t(39) = 1.33 happiness was better recognized than anger in the face Modality [t(39) = 5.82 p < 0.001] but anger was better identified in the voice Modality [t(39) = 2.95 There was no interaction effect between Emotion and Condition [F(2,76) = 2.88 ηp2 = 0.070] or Modality and Condition [F(2,76) = 2.74 there was no main Group effect [F(1,38) = 0.49 ηp2 = 0.013] nor any interaction between Emotion and Group [F(1,38) = 0.31 ηp2 = 0.008]; Modality and Group [F(1,38) = 0.22 ηp2 = 0.006]; Condition and Group [F(2,76) = 1.05 An interaction was also found between Emotion and Modality [F(1,38) = 4.97 showing that happiness processing was faster than anger processing for faces [t(39) = 2.95 p = 0.005] while no significant difference was found for voices [t(39) = 0.85 an interaction between Modality and Condition [F(2,76) = 170.86 ηp2 = 0.818] showed that voice processing was faster than face processing in unimodal Conditions [t(39) = 13 there was no significant difference for crossmodal congruent [t(39) = 0.55 No main group effect was found [F(1,38) = 0.52 ηp2 = 0.013] nor any interaction between Emotion and Group [F(1,38) = 0.02 ηp2 = 0]; Modality and Group [F(1,38) = 3.83 ηp2 = 0.092]; Emotion and Condition [F(2,76) = 1.62 Reaction times (in milliseconds) for the two modalities (face and voice) of emotional processing within the three possible conditions (unimodal and crossmodal incongruent) among Binge Drinkers (BD) and Control Participants (CP) Bars represent the mean value for each condition and whiskers represent the standard error correlations analyses conducted between emotional processing abilities (AS and RT) and alcohol consumption characteristics showed no significant relationship (all p > 0.05) correlations between emotional processing abilities and drinking motives were not significant for social order significant correlations were found in BD group between enhancement motive and the percentage of correct anger identification in face crossmodal congruent trials (r = 0.77 p = 0.003) and face crossmodal incongruent trials (r = 0.70 The presented p-values were adjusted after Bonferroni correction The aims of this study were to evaluate emotional processing among binge drinkers and to explore the extension of the continuum hypothesis toward affective abilities while earlier studies have underlined a wide range of interpersonal and emotional impairments in alcohol-dependence (notably for crossmodal processing) no available data using more ecological paradigms allowed determining whether binge drinking potentially considered as a first step toward alcohol-dependence was also characterized by emotional impairments the performance of binge drinkers and controls was compared during an emotion detection task using crossmodal stimuli which are characteristic of the everyday life interactions characterized by greater alcohol consumption associated with strong negative consequences could therefore present impaired emotional processing while more recreational BD (characterized by heavy alcohol use but less negative consequences including in self-reported control abilities) could present preserved emotional abilities the paradigm used in this study required to focus on one modality (and therefore inhibit the other) during a half block with no instruction change It thus appears easier than classical inhibition tasks and could explain the good performance of BD Finally, this study presents some limitations. First, even if previous studies have asserted that face stimuli should be modified to have the same complexity than voice stimuli (e.g., Joassin et al., 2004), and whereas the current pretest phase highlighted an optimal morphing level at 40–60, as it was also used in previous studies (e.g., Maurage et al., 2007a) voice unimodal trials led to faster processing and better accuracies than faces suggesting that future studies should confirm the use of this morphing level and potentially determine a more efficient level of complexity some variables used in this study to assess alcohol consumption appear quite subjective (e.g. While group selection and statistical analyses support the consistency between all alcohol measures (those used to compute binge drinking score and those used to evaluate the number of drinks consumed) it should be underlined and taken into account in future studies It might be hypothesized that the preserved behavioral performance observed here actually masks underlying subtle brain modifications While this preliminary investigation of emotional processing in binge drinking did not emphasize difficulty for emotional detection or crossmodal integration, it bares central perspectives for future studies. Indeed, as one previous study had identified emotional deficits at the behavioral and brain levels in binge drinking, it suggests that emotional abilities are not totally preserved when complex emotional decoding is requested (Maurage et al., 2013a) The current study thus contributes to specifying that the impairments presented by BD depend on the nature and the complexity of the evaluation the ecological design using crossmodal stimuli brings light to the potential beneficial features associated with binge drinking (e.g. positive motivations and social integration) underlining its main distinction with alcohol-dependence as BD appears preserved in close to real life crossmodal situations Primary emotional detection thus seems to be preserved indicating that BD would be undermined only in more complicated situations these results suggest that the continuum hypothesis cannot be generalized toward the broad field of emotions processing and urge future studies to deepen the exploration of emotional and cognitive abilities in binge drinking A precise description of the impaired versus preserved abilities characterizing this alcohol consumption pattern is needed to have a clearer view of the extent and limits of the continuum hypothesis All authors contributed to the study design Data collection was conducted by SL and data analyses were performed in collaboration with all authors (SL SL drafted the paper under the supervision of PM All authors approved the final version of the paper PM (Research Associate) and SL (Research Fellow) are funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS Belgium) and this research has been supported by a Grant from the Fondation pour la Recherche en Alcoologie (FRA but these funds did not exert any editorial direction or censorship on any part of this article The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: Guidelines for Use in Primary Care Google Scholar Google Scholar able to stop – but they fail to adjust Social and emotional relevance in face processing: happy faces of future interaction partners enhance the late positive potential Detection of audio-visual integration sites in humans by application of electrophysiological criteria to the BOLD effect Neural correlates of correct and failed response inhibition in heavy versus light social drinkers: an fMRI study during a go/no-go task by healthy participants doi: 10.1007/s11682-016-9654-y [Epub ahead of print] and electrocortical responses to emotional images Is binge drinking in young adults associated with an alcohol-specific impairment of response inhibition Below and beyond the recognition of emotional facial expressions in alcohol dependence: from basic perception to social cognition Categorical perception of emotional facial expressions in alcohol-dependence Recognition of facial expressions by alcoholic patients: a systematic literature review Consequences of multiple withdrawals from alcohol Genetic and environmental influences on the development of alcoholism: resilience vs A plea for including social interaction in emotion research CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Psychometric evaluation of the five-factor modified drinking motives questionnaire — revised in undergraduates Does binge drinking in teenagers affect their everyday prospective memory Time based prospective memory deficits associated with binge drinking: evidence from the Cambridge prospective memory test (CAMPROMPT) Neuropsychological functioning is compromised in binge drinking young adults with depression Magnitude of and trends in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among US college students ages 18-24 When audition alters vision: an event-related potential study of the crossmodal interactions between faces and voices Binge drinking and health behavior in medical students Validity of the alcohol use disorders identification test in college students Presentation and validation of the Radboud Faces Database Binging at the campus: motivations and impulsivity influence binge drinking profiles in university students Differential impairments across attentional networks in binge drinking The neural network sustaining crossmodal integration is impaired in alcohol-dependence: an fMRI study Pathways to alcohol-induced brain impairment in young people: a review by Hermens et al. 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Pierre Maurage, cGllcnJlLm1hdXJhZ2VAdWNsb3V2YWluLmJl Like this Chris McCausland and Guz Khan travel to Jordan where they swim in the Dead Sea Featuring: Chris McCausland & Guz Khan Staff at the Malta-based European Asylum Support Office have complained about harassment and a “culture of irresponsibility” even claiming they are subjected to “psychological violence” The complaints on the state of the agency and the way it is being managed were made in e-mails employees circulated among colleagues the management board instructed EASO director José Carreira not to make human resources and procurement-related issues before obtaining the chairman’s clearance in writing The Times of Malta reported earlier this year the agency was being investigated by the European anti-fraud office He is strongly denying accusations of misconduct in procurement procedures irregularities in human resources management and possible breaches of data protection The EASO provides support to member states facing immigration problems monitors the situation and offers training relating to the implementation of the common European asylum system The agency has been sited in Malta since 2011 and is now focused on ‘hotspots’ in Italy and Greece Read: Auditors clear all EU agencies, except Malta-based one Brussels-based newspaper Politico reported on Thursday that head of the human resources division let it be known via e-mail he was stepping down saying “the rule of law” at the agency was absent and commenting that what happened at the EASO would not occur at any other EU institution Mr Carreira said the e-mails originated from “three employees and do not in any way constitute an objective or authoritative analysis of the state of affairs at the agency” “I have made every effort to work constructively with all my staff since taking up my post while I respect the divergent opinions of all my staff members I am confident that the reflections contained therein do not reflect the sentiments of the large majority of EASO staff,” he said Mr Carreira insisted it was not right for the staff members to “have made their allegations” without taking the necessary steps to clarify them especially considering that Olaf investigations were still in progress “The presumption of innocence of any staff member until proven otherwise is a fundamental tenet of the EU and is fully applied at EASO,” he said The agency's former head of operations and the second highest ranking staff member after Mr Carreira was dismissed by last year and has since launched a case against the agency for unfair dismissal at the European Court of Justice please register for free or log in to your account.