Examining the Impact of Stress on the Emotionally Reinforcing Properties of Alcohol in Heavy Social Drinkers: A Multimodal Investigation Integrating Laboratory and Ambulatory Methods

长期以来，酒精在压力面前改善情绪的能力是其最宝贵的强化特性之一 研究人员认为，这对于了解酒精使用障碍(AUD)的病因至关重要。 绝大多数饮酒者报告说，他们从酒精中获得的情绪改善在 压力的背景下，报告戒酒后压力释放水平较高的人有患上 澳元。但是使用实验方法捕捉酒精强化的这一关键因素的尝试已经 产生了惊人的不一致的结果。这项先前的实验研究的一个显著特点是，在 为了捕捉酒精缓解压力的作用，研究人员已经偏离了 压力源通常是在典型的饮酒环境中遇到的，这些环境本质上具有压倒性的社会性。 在拟议的研究中，我们使用一种新的方法重新讨论这些关键问题，着眼于 人们实际上是通过饮酒来识别能够缓解酒精压力的手法。更多 具体地说，我们探讨了两个最基本的社会压力来源--缺乏社会熟悉度和贫乏 关系质量--作为酒精强化的调解人。我们研究了酒精是否更能强化 在陌生与熟悉的社会交往的背景下，此外，酒精是否更能强化 在低质量的社会关系和高质量的社会关系中。在以下背景下捕捉酒精的影响 自然社会话语提出了巨大的方法论挑战，我们运用了多种方法 关于我们的问题，实验和移动相结合的方法，并使用最新的科学 测量情绪和饮酒情况。我们在一个样本中检验了我们的研究目标 对AUD病因的理解有很高的相关性-年轻的重度社交饮酒者。在…的实验室里 这项研究将360名受试者随机分配为饮用中等剂量酒精的人或对照组 在熟悉或不熟悉的人的陪伴下饮用。在这些人中，180人还将 参加为期21天的动态评估期，以检查酒精与社会压力之间的相互作用 日常生活。在非卧床研究臂中，参与者将佩戴经皮脚踝手镯来评估BAC (在实验室会议期间为每个人校准)，并将进一步提供有关其 情绪和他们的社会背景对随机提示的反应。面部动作编码系统，一个 全面的、基于解剖学的面部肌肉运动分类系统将被用于 评估研究中实验室和活动手臂的情绪。拟议的研究有助于 通过回答酒精文献中最基本的问题之一-- 人们为什么喝酒的问题。此外，通过寻找“现实生活”来确定压力源，这项拟议的研究 可能对澳大利亚疾病的病因和干预措施有各种关键影响，包括减少危害和 预防计划，降低复发率，以及识别澳元病的风险人群。

Alcohol’s ability to improve mood in the face of stress is among its most prized reinforcing properties, long held by researchers to be of critical importance for the understanding of the etiology of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Drinkers overwhelmingly report that the mood-enhancement they gain from alcohol is most pronounced in the context of stress, and individuals who report higher levels of stress relief from alcohol are at risk for developing AUD. But attempts to capture this key element of alcohol reinforcement using experimental methods have yielded strikingly inconsistent results. One remarkable feature of this prior experimental research is that, in attempting to capture alcohol’s stress-relieving effects, researchers have strayed far outside the range of stressors typically encountered in typical drinking contexts, contexts that are overwhelmingly social in nature. In the proposed study, we revisit these critical questions using a novel approach, looking to the settings in which people actually drink alcohol to identify manipulations capable of capturing alcohol stress-relief. More specifically, we explore two of the most fundamental social stressors—lack of social familiarity and poor relationship quality—as moderators of alcohol reinforcement. We examine whether alcohol is more reinforcing within the context of unfamiliar vs. familiar social interaction and, further, whether alcohol is more reinforcing within the context of low vs. high quality social relationships. Capturing alcohol’s effects within the context of natural social discourse presents formidable methodological challenges, and we bring multiple methods to bear on our questions, combining experimental and ambulatory methods and employing state-of-the-science measures of emotion and alcohol consumption. We examine our study aims in a sample of individuals with high relevance for the understanding of AUD etiology—young heavy social drinkers. In the laboratory arm of the study, 360 individuals will be randomly assigned to consume either a moderate dose of alcohol or a control beverage in the company of either familiar or unfamiliar individuals. Of these individuals, 180 will also participate in a 21-day ambulatory assessment period to examine the interaction of alcohol and social stress in daily life. In the ambulatory study arm, participants will wear transdermal ankle bracelets to assess BAC (calibrated for each individual within the laboratory session) and will further provide information about their mood and their social contexts in response to random prompts. The Facial Action Coding System, a comprehensive, anatomically-based system for categorizing facial muscle movement, will be employed to assess emotion in both laboratory and ambulatory arms of the study. The proposed research contributes to the understanding of AUD by addressing one of the most fundamental questions in the alcohol literature—the question of why people drink. In addition, by looking to “real life” to identify stressors, the proposed study might have a variety of key implications for AUD etiology and interventions, including for harm-reduction and prevention programs, reducing rates of relapse, and the identification of those at risk for AUD.