Alcohol-dependence Clinical Trial
Official title:
Electrophysiological Correlates of Emotional and Crossmodal Stimuli Processing Among Alcohol-dependent Participants : Exploration of the Peripheral Presentation Effect
Alcohol-dependence is the most widespread addiction in Western countries and leads to a wide
range of impairments at cerebral and cognitive levels. It has also been showed that
alcohol-dependence is associated with emotional disturbances, particularly for the decoding
of emotional facial expressions (EFE). In view of the crucial role played by EFE to develop
and maintain satisfactory interpersonal relations, this emotional processing impairment may
have deleterious consequences on alcohol-dependent patient's social well-being, and this
deficit is thus of particular clinical interest. Nevertheless, this deficit has up to now
been evaluated only by means of experiments using paradigms with low ecological value (i.e.
presentation of EFE in isolation and in the central vision field), while in the real life,
emotional stimuli are most frequently appearing together with other emotional stimulations
(particularly voices) and in the peripheral vision field. Moreover, the cerebral correlates
of this emotional deficit are still to be determined.
The present study thus aims at exploring the Emotional Facial Expressions (EFE) decoding in
alcoholism using a more ecological paradigm, based on peripheral presentation of emotional
crossmodal stimuli (i.e. the simultaneous presentation of emotionally congruent face and
voice).
Main aim: Determining the electrophysiological characteristics (latencies and amplitudes) of
the event-related components elicited among recently detoxified alcohol-dependent
participants, while performing an emotion-detection task on crossmodal stimuli (voices
and/or faces) presented centrally or peripherally, and comparing these characteristics with
those obtained among paired healthy participants.
Secondary objectives:
- Exploring the electrophysiological pattern modifications among alcohol-dependent
participants for the emotional faces and voices decoding (unimodal conditions), using
spatio-temporal analyses methods.
- Exploring the electrophysiological waves associated with peripheral crossmodal stimuli
processing among healthy participants.
- Exploring the behavioral correlates (reaction times and accuracy) of the
emotion-detection task among alcohol-dependent participants while processing peripheral
stimuli.
- Exploring the psychopathological comorbidities among alcohol-dependent participants and
their influence on the behavioral and electrophysiological results.
Methodology: Evaluation the event-related potentials elicited among alcohol-dependent and
healthy participants while performing an emotion-detection task on unimodal (visual or
auditory) or crossmodal (visuo-auditory) stimulations presented centrally or peripherally.
Event-related potentials allow to monitor the electrical activity of the brain with high
temporal resolution and to detect even minor neurocognitive restrictions. This cerebral
measures will be completed by behavioral (reaction times and accuracy) and
psychopathological measures.
No specific interventions assigned to the subjects of the study.
Evaluations: The room contains a panoramic screen (2.4 X 4 meters) covering a 180 degrees of
visual angle. Participants will seat in a chair situated two meters away from the screen, in
front of a table on which the response pad will be placed. Three projectors will display the
visual stimulations, either centrally or lateralized (-12°, -24°on the left or +12°, +24° on
the right). Headphones will be placed on participants' ears in order to display the auditory
stimulations, either on both ears or lateralized (left or right ear), and presented
separately (unimodal conditions) or simultaneously (crossmodal condition) with the visual
stimuli. Visual stimuli, constructed using FaceGen 3.4 program, will be emotional faces (two
males, two females) depicting happiness, anger or a neutral expression. Auditory stimuli
(two males, two females), from a validated battery, will be emotional voices depicting
happiness, anger or a neutral prosody and presented at a 70 decibels level. Crossmodal
stimulations will be a combination of visual and auditory stimuli, congruent for gender and
emotion. Experiment will be composed of 39 conditions: 3 stimulations (visual, auditory,
visuo-auditory) X 3 emotions (anger, happiness, neutral) X 3/5 lateralisation (-24°, -12°,
0°, 12°, 24°). Each condition will be evaluated on the basis of 50 stimulations.
Event-related potentials will be recorded during the whole experiment by means of a 128
electrodes cap placed on participant's head and connected with an amplifier (Advanced Neuro
Technology, ANT) and a recording computer, synchronised with the stimulation system.
Behavioral responses will be recorded by means of a response pad. Psychopathological
measures will be conducted using validated questionnaires: State and trait anxiety (STAI A
and B, Spielberger et al., 1983), depression (BDI, Beck et al., 1987), interpersonal
problems (Horowitz et al. (1988)), evaluating the quantity and quality of the social
interactions, and the integration in the family and relationship background and alexithymia
(Bagby et al., 1994).
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Observational Model: Case Control, Time Perspective: Prospective
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