Neural Bases of Implicit Attention to Alcohol-Conditioned Stimuli

描述（由申请人提供）：通过与饮酒重复配对而与酒精相关的刺激被认为会诱导渴望，将内隐注意力转移到酒精上，并促进复发。然而，这种环境条件刺激的人类神经成像研究通常必须恢复到实际刺激的代理（例如，啤酒瓶的图片），并被迫回避条件反射历史和特定刺激的个体差异问题。例如，显示的视觉图像只能近似自然环境中最初学习的刺激，并且没有办法知道原始条件反射的精确药理条件和频率。本申请使用R21机制来测试以下可行性：1）经典地将新刺激调节为仔细控制的、运动学建模的静脉内酒精输注，其靶向酒精消耗的最有益阶段（上升肢体），然后2）研究响应于这些新线索的大脑系统。我们提出的范式将提供相当大的控制刺激学习本身的确切性质，从而允许更精细的研究所涉及的神经通路，以及如何在这些通路中的活动与内隐注意对酒精线索。这种方法在研究与饮酒行为相关的神经机制和酒精中毒的特定危险因素方面非常有用。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究将使用一种称为功能性磁共振成像的技术来研究人类大脑的通路，这些通路与学习环境中的某些刺激如何与酒精中毒相关有关。该项目还将研究学习后人们的注意力被吸引到这些酒精相关刺激的方式。这些因素被认为对酒精中毒和其他成瘾的发展和维持非常重要。像这样的研究有可能提高我们对这些大脑系统的理解，这反过来可能导致更好的治疗。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Stimuli that become associated with alcohol by repeated pairing with drinking are thought to induce craving, shift implicit attention toward alcohol, and promote relapse. However, human neuroimaging studies of such environmentally conditioned stimuli must usually revert to proxies for the actual stimuli (e.g., pictures of a beer bottle), and are forced to side-step the problem of individual differences in conditioning history and specific stimuli. For example, a displayed visual image can only approximate the originally learned stimulus in the natural environment, and there is no way to know the precise pharmacologic conditions and frequency of the original conditioning. This application uses the R21 mechanism to test the feasibility of: 1) Classically conditioning a novel stimulus to carefully controlled, pharmacokinetically modeled intravenous alcohol infusion that targets the most rewarding phase of alcohol consumption (the ascending limb), and then 2) studying the brain systems that respond to these novel cues. Our proposed paradigm would afford considerably greater control over the exact nature of stimulus learning itself, thus permitting a more refined study of the involved neural pathways and how activity in these pathways relates to implicit attention toward alcohol cues. Such an approach would be highly useful in the study of the neural mechanisms associated with drinking behaviors and particular risk factors for alcoholism. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will use a technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the human brain's pathways related to learning how certain stimuli in the environment become associated with alcohol intoxication. The project will also study the manner in which people's attention are drawn to these alcohol associated stimuli after learning. Such factors are thought to be highly important to the development and maintenance of alcoholism and other addictions. Research such as this has the potential to improve our understanding of these brain systems, which may in turn lead to better treatments.