• Energy Research

Theories of substance use have emphasized the role of craving and inhibitory control in continued use, yet few studies have examined the interplay between momentary craving and inhibitory control in predicting illicit drug use in everyday life. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether individual differences in inhibitory control, indexed by laboratory-assessed electrophysiology and behavior, moderate the relation between momentary craving and alcohol and drug use assessed outside the lab using a smartphone. A secondary goal was to examine the extent of coherence in the results across different ERP components (e.g., no-go P3, ERN) purported to assess inhibitory control. Participants were current illicit drug users, who completed a flanker task that also contained go/no-go trials, and participated in two weeks of ambulatory assessments of their drug and alcohol craving and use. The results showed that craving a few hours before was related to subsequent drug and alcohol use; however, traditional measures of inhibitory control (e.g., go/no-go P3) did not moderate these effects as expected for illicit drug use. For alcohol use, individuals with less post-error slowing had a stronger relation between craving and alcohol use than those higher in post-error slowing. These results highlight that different cognitive processes are assessed by electrophysiological and behavioral measures of inhibitory control and may play different roles in drug and alcohol use and craving.

Scientific and lay theories propose that negative affect plays a causal role in problematic alcohol use. Despite this common belief, supporting experimental evidence has been mixed. Thus, the goals of this study were to (a) meta-analytically quantify the degree to which experimentally manipulated negative affect influenced alcohol use and craving in the laboratory, (b) examine whether the size of this effect depended on key manipulation characteristics (i.e., self-relevance of the stressor, timing of the end of the stressor, and strength of negative affect induction) or sample characteristics (i.e., substance use history). Across 41 studies (N = 2,403), we found small-to-medium effects for more use (dav = .31, 95% confidence interval; CI [.11, .50]) and craving (dav = .39, 95% CI [.04, .74]) following a negative affect manipulation than a control manipulation. We also found a significant increase in craving from pre- to postaffect induction (dav = .36, 95% CI [.14, .58]). This suggests the mixed results from the prior literature were likely because of statistically underpowered studies. The moderator hypotheses received weak support, with few significant results in the predicted direction. Our meta-analysis provides clarity about a previously inconclusive set of results and highlights the need for more ecologically valid manipulations of affect in future work. (PsycINFO Database Record