Multisensory Processing of Alcohol Cues in Young Adult Binge Drinkers

Binge drinking is common among young adults and is related to many negative health outcomes including blackouts, risky sex, drunk driving, alcohol use disorder, and liver disease. Understanding whether there are differences in how binge drinkers respond to alcohol-related cues and whether this is related to craving is important for improving interventions and treatments. The proposed study will compare behavioral and neural processing of alcohol and non-alcohol cues in a single sensory modality (vision) with that of cues presented in multiple sensory modalities (vision, touch, and smell) with varying degrees of realistic appearance (images, virtual reality, real objects). Participants will answer questionnaires related to their physical and mental health and recent alcohol and drug use. Those eligible for the study will complete two in-person lab sessions. During both sessions they will be asked to view a series of cues which will include images on a computer screen, objects presented in virtual reality, or real objects. Sometimes these will be presented just visually and other times they will be combined with the presentation of specific smells or an object to touch. Some of these cues will be alcohol-related and others will be neutral (non-alcohol-related). Brainwave activity, as measured by the electroencephalogram (EEG), and reports of alcohol craving will be collected during these sessions. It is expected that brainwave activity will be greatest in response to multisensory cues compared to that in response unisensory (visual only) cues. It is also expected that young adults with a recent history of binge drinking will show the greatest brainwave activity in response to multisensory alcohol cues compared to social drinkers. Binge drinkers will also report more alcohol craving in response to multisensory alcohol cues compared to social drinkers. It is anticipated that brainwave responses will increase as the level of realism of the cues increases. Binge drinkers will also show stronger brainwave and craving responses to multisensory alcohol cues presented as real objects. Finally, binge drinkers will show lessened brain and craving responses when multisensory cues do not match compared to social drinkers. For example, if a photo shows an alcoholic drink but the smell presented is not alcohol related, binge drinkers will show less attentive brain activity toward those mismatched cues. Given that most alcohol cues in daily life are experienced across multiple senses simultaneously, results of this research will provide a better understanding of the relation between alcohol cue processing and craving, and will inform development of more effective programs for decreasing young adult risky drinking behavior.