Attentional bias for drug cues in opiate dependence

Background. In a number of theories of compulsive drug: use conditioned responses to stimuli associated with drug taking play a pivotal role. For example, according to incentive-sensitization theory (Robinson & Berridge, 1993), drug-related stimuli selectively capture attention, and the neural mechanisms underlying this attentional bias play a key role in the development and maintenance of drug dependence, and in relapse. However, there has been little work that assesses attentional biases in addiction. Methods. We used a pictorial probe detection task to investigate whether there is an attentional bias to stimuli associated with drug use in opiate dependence. Stimuli presented included pairs of drug related and matched neutral pictures. Methadone-maintained opiate addicts (N = 16) were compared with age-matched controls (N = 16). Results. A mixed design analysis of variance of response times to probes revealed a significant three-way interaction of group x drug picture location x probe location. Opiate addicts had relatively faster reaction times to probes that replaced drug pictures rather than neutral pictures, consistent with the predicted attentional bias to drug-related stimuli. Conclusions, These results support the idea that an attentional bias for drug-related stimuli occurs in opiate dependence. This is consistent with the concept of a central role for such salient stimuli in compulsive drug use.