Object alternation in alcohol dependent: Patients without amnesic syndrome

Abstract

Several studies indicate that the frontal cortex is sensitive to the toxic effects of alcohol. Recent studies of our group revealed all impairment of alcohol dependent subjects in object alternation. One major problem of these studies is that they all used object alternation embedded in a spatial presentation and with two spatially arranged response buttons: a left and a right hand response key. The deficit in alternation tasks may be due to problems in processing these spatial features. We investigated 24 detoxified alcohol dependent patients, who were in a long term treatment program, and 28 control subjects matched for intelligence and age. using a new object alternation paradigm avoiding confounding of spatial effects. The results indicate that object alternation is impaired in long term alcohol dependent patients without amnesic syndrome, even when no differential spatial response is afforded. We suggest that internal control on a cognitive level, as well as oil a behavioral level, may be a fundamental problem in addiction and might be related to ventromedial and orbitofrontal dysfunction.