Metadehumanization, fundamental needs and coping strategies: A comparison of drinkers at low versus high risk of alcohol use disorder.

The interpersonal difficulties documented in chronic excessive drinking might foster the progression toward severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). Characterizing these interpersonal difficulties and their commonalities with patients already presenting a diagnosed SAUD is needed to develop targeted prophylactic interventions. Patients with SAUD present metadehumanization (i.

A pilot study investigating affective forecasting biases with a novel virtual reality-based paradigm.

A body of research indicates that people are prone to overestimate the affective impact of future events. Here, we developed a novel experimental paradigm to study these affective forecasting biases under laboratory conditions using subjective (arousal and valence) and autonomic measures (skin conductance responses, SCRs, and heart rate). Thirty participants predicted their emotional responses to 15 unpleasant, 15 neutral, and 15 pleasant scenarios (affective forecasting phase) to which they were then exposed in virtual reality (emotional experience phase).

Persistent physical symptoms after COVID-19 infection and the risk of Somatic Symptom Disorder.

Objective: Evidence shows that many patients with COVID-19 present persistent symptoms after the acute infection. Some patients may be at a high risk of developing Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD), in which persistent symptoms are accompanied by excessive and disproportionate health-related thoughts, feelings and behaviors regarding these symptoms. This study assessed the frequency of persistent physical symptoms and SSD and their associated factors in patients with confirmed COVID-19.

Greater self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in severe alcohol use disorder.

Background: Perfectionistic individuals present exaggerated performance standards, generating a constant search for flawlessness and a high tendency to self-criticize. Dominant models distinguish three dimensions of perfectionism: namely, self-oriented, socially prescribed and other-oriented. Perfectionism constitutes a vulnerability factor for psychopathological disorders, but its role in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD) remains unexplored.

Spatial frequency processing and its modulation by emotional content in severe alcohol use disorder.

Rationale: Visuo-perceptive deficits in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD) remain little understood, notably regarding the respective involvement of the two main human visual streams, i.e., magnocellular (MC) and parvocellular (PC) pathways, in these deficits.

Visual abilities in Severe Alcohol Use Disorder: Preserved spatial but impaired temporal resolution.

Visuospatial impairments have long been reported in Severe Alcohol Use Disorder but remain poorly understood, notably regarding the involvement of magnocellular (MC) and parvocellular (PC) pathways. This empirical gap hampers the understanding of the implications of these visual changes, especially since the MC and PC pathways are thought to sustain central bottom-up and top-down processes during cognitive processing. They thus influence our ability to efficiently monitor our environment and make the most effective decisions.

Longitudinal Assessment of Alcohol Consumption throughout the First COVID-19 Lockdown: Contribution of Age and Pre-Pandemic Drinking Patterns.

Introduction: The COVID-19 outbreak and the related lockdown measures have raised concerns regarding mental health, including alcohol misuse. Preliminary studies investigated alcohol consumption at the early stages of lockdown, but no longitudinal data regarding its evolution during and after the first lockdown are currently available.

Methods: We investigated changes in alcohol consumption among a convenience sample of 1,693 French-speaking Belgian adults using a 3-stage longitudinal online survey.

Alcohol consumption changes during the first COVID-19 lockdown: an online population survey in a convenience sample of French-speaking Belgian residents.

An online survey among French-speaking Belgians (N=7711) investigated self-reported changes in alcohol consumption during the first COVID-19-related lockdown (March 17 - May 4 2020). Population-weighted estimates indicated that 31.37% of the population increased consumption during lockdown, 30.

Visuoperceptive Impairments in Severe Alcohol Use Disorder: A Critical Review of Behavioral Studies.

The present literature review is aimed at offering a comprehensive and critical view of behavioral data collected during the past seventy years concerning visuoperception in severe alcohol use disorders (AUD). To pave the way for a renewal of research and clinical approaches in this very little understood field, this paper (1) provides a critical review of previous behavioral studies exploring visuoperceptive processing in severe AUD, (2) identifies the alcohol-related parameters and demographic factors that influence the deficits, and (3) addresses the limitations of this literature and their implications for current clinical strategies. By doing so, this review highlights the presence of visuoperceptive deficits but also shows how the lack of in-depth studies exploring the visual system in this clinical population results in the current absence of integration of these deficits in the dominant models of vision.

Alcohol consumption changes following COVID-19 lockdown among French-speaking Belgian individuals at risk for alcohol use disorder.

We investigated changes in alcohol consumption following the COVID-19 lockdown among French-speaking Belgian individuals at risk for severe alcohol use disorder. Participants (N = 299) at risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD, i.e.

Neural correlates of visuoperceptive changes in severe alcohol use disorder: A critical review of neuroimaging and electrophysiological findings.

Visuoperceptive deficits are frequently reported in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD) and are considered as pervasive and persistent in time. While this topic of investigation has previously driven researchers' interest, far fewer studies have focused on visuoperception in SAUD since the '90s, leaving open central questions regarding the origin and implications of these deficits. To renew research in the field and provide a solid background to work upon, this paper reviews the neural correlates of visuoperception in SAUD, based on data from neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies.

Prior drinking motives predict alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 lockdown: A cross-sectional online survey among Belgian college students.

The global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the resulting lockdown measures have raised concerns regarding their effect on alcohol consumption. We investigated alcohol use during lockdown in a population of college students, usually characterized by social and heavy drinking. We also tested the predictive role of pre-lockdown drinking motives on alcohol consumption during lockdown.

Magnocellular and Parvocellular Mediated Luminance Contrast Discrimination in Severe Alcohol Use Disorder.

Background: Severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD) is associated with widespread cognitive impairments, including low-level visual processing deficits that persist after prolonged abstinence. However, the extent and characteristics of these visual deficits remain largely undetermined, impeding the identification of their underlying mechanisms and influence on higher-order processing. In particular, little work has been conducted to assess the integrity of the magnocellular (MC) and parvocellular (PC) visual pathways, namely the 2 main visual streams that convey information from the retina up to striate, extrastriate, and dorsal/ventral cerebral regions.

Selective visual and crossmodal impairment in the discrimination of anger and fear expressions in severe alcohol use disorder.

Background: Severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD) is associated with impaired discrimination of emotional expressions. This deficit appears increased in crossmodal settings, when simultaneous inputs from different sensory modalities are presented. However, so far, studies exploring emotional crossmodal processing in SAUD relied on static faces and unmatched face/voice pairs, thus offering limited ecological validity.

Respective influence of current alcohol consumption and duration of heavy drinking on brain morphological alterations in alcohol use disorder.

Numerous studies have explored the morphological differences of the brain between subjects with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and control subjects, but very few have investigated the impact of the duration of alcohol use disorder (DAD) and current level of alcohol consumption (CAC) within AUD subjects using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We compared the morphological MRI of 44 controls and 66 AUD subjects, recruited at the end of a detoxification program. Additional analyses within the AUD group determined which specific alterations were respectively associated with DAD and CAC using: (1) Bonferroni-corrected multivariable linear regressions to explore the DAD/CAC impact on brain volumes and (2) a general linear model (GLM module of FreeSurfer's Qdec) and Monte Carlo simulation to correct for multiple comparisons (P < 0.

Towards a Dynamic Exploration of Vision, Cognition and Emotion in Alcohol-Use Disorders.

Visuoperceptive impairments are among the most frequently reported deficits in alcoholuse disorders, but only very few studies have investigated their origin and interactions with other categories of dysfunctions. Besides, these deficits have generally been interpreted in a linear bottom- up perspective, which appears very restrictive with respect to the new models of vision developed in healthy populations. Indeed, new theories highlight the predictive nature of the visual system and demonstrate that it interacts with higher-level cognitive functions to generate top-down predictions.