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Published on: January 5, 2018
Cue-elicited heart rate variability and attentional bias predict alcohol relapse following treatment
Eric L Garland1, Ingmar H A Franken, Matthew O Howard
1College of Social Work, Trinity Institute for the Addictions, Florida State University, University Center, Building C, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2570, USA. egarland@fsu.edu
Rationale:
Identification of malleable neurocognitive predictors of relapse among alcohol-dependent individuals is important for the optimization of health care delivery and clinical services.
Objectives:
Given that alcohol cue-reactivity can predict relapse, we evaluated cue-elicited high-frequency heart rate variability (HFHRV) and alcohol attentional bias (AB) as potential relapse risk indices.
Method:
Alcohol-dependent patients in long-term residential treatment who had participated in mindfulness-oriented therapy or an addiction support group completed a spatial cueing task as a measure of alcohol AB and an affect-modulated alcohol cue-reactivity protocol while HFHRV was assessed.
Results:
Post-treatment HFHRV cue-reactivity and alcohol AB significantly predicted the occurrence and timing of relapse by 6-month follow-up, independent of treatment condition and after controlling for alcohol dependence severity. Alcohol-dependent patients who relapsed exhibited a significantly greater HFHRV reactivity to stress-primed alcohol cues than patients who did not relapse.
Conclusions:
Cue-elicited HFHRV and alcohol AB can presage relapse and may therefore hold promise as prognostic indicators in clinical settings.
