Aims: The aim of the study was to compare emotional information processing in patients with severe alcohol use disorder in short-term abstinence (<1 month) and long-term abstinence (at least 6 months to 9 years) with control participants.
Methods: We studied the variation in pupil diameter during the presentation of pictures of human interactions associated with positive, negative or neutral valences.
Results: Overall, the results of the short-term abstinent group revealed greater pupil dilation regardless of the valence of the pictures while the pupillary response of long-term abstainers did not differ from the control group. More specifically, according to each valence, the pupil response to neutral pictures was greater for both patient groups than for controls. For the long-term abstainers, a negative correlation was found between the length of abstinence and the pupillary response to emotional stimuli.
Conclusion: In long-term abstainers group, the high activation by neutral stimuli suggests however some difficulties in the processing of nonemotional stimuli, considered emotional ones and may constitute a potential relapse factor or the maintenance of addiction.
© The Author 2016. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.