Intoxication Effects on Impulsive Alcohol Choice in Heavy Drinkers: Correlation With Sensation Seeking and Differential Effects by Commodity.

Background: The preference for immediate rewards and high sensation seeking are both potent risk factors for alcohol use disorder (AUD), but how they interact during intoxication is poorly understood. To model decision making linked to AUD risk, we tested heavy drinkers for impulsive choice (delay discounting with alcohol:money or money:money) and behavioral sensation seeking using a novel odor choice task. Laboratory tasks measured actual behavior with real contingencies.

The disengaging brain: Dynamic transitions from cognitive engagement and alcoholism risk.

Human functional brain connectivity is usually measured either at "rest" or during cognitive tasks, ignoring life's moments of mental transition. We propose a different approach to understanding brain network transitions. We applied a novel independent component analysis of functional connectivity during motor inhibition (stop signal task) and during the continuous transition to an immediately ensuing rest.

Innate and Acquired Quinine-Resistant Alcohol, but not Saccharin, Drinking in Crossed High-Alcohol-Preferring Mice.

Background: Alcohol consumption despite aversive consequences is often a key component of an alcoholism diagnosis. Free-choice alcohol consumption despite bitter quinine adulteration in rodents has been seen following several months of free-choice drinking, but there has been little study of whether prolonged access to other palatable substances such as saccharin yields quinine resistance. Selectively bred crossed high-alcohol-preferring (cHAP) mice average blood alcohol levels of over 250 mg/dl during free-choice access, considerably higher than other models.

Pairing neutral cues with alcohol intoxication: new findings in executive and attention networks.

Rationale: Alcohol-associated stimuli capture attention, yet drinkers differ in the precise stimuli that become paired with intoxication.

Objectives: Extending our prior work to examine the influence of alcoholism risk factors, we paired abstract visual stimuli with intravenous alcohol delivered covertly and examined brain responses to these Pavlovian-conditioned stimuli in fMRI when subjects were not intoxicated.

Methods: Sixty healthy drinkers performed task-irrelevant alcohol conditioning that presented geometric shapes as conditioned stimuli.

Family history of alcoholism and the human brain response to oral sucrose.

A heightened hedonic response to sweet tastes has been associated with increased alcohol preference and alcohol consumption in both humans and animals. The principal goal of this study was to examine blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) activation to high- and low-concentration sweet solutions in subjects who are either positive (FHP) or negative (FHN) for a family history of alcoholism. Seventy-four non-treatment seeking, community-recruited, healthy volunteers (22.