It seems that if. Training cognitive abilities can help you resist temptation and without side effects. Alcohol is the most consumed psychoactive drug in our country. So says the Survey on Alcohol and Drugs in Spain presented at the beginning of this year, and carried out in 2011-2012 on more than 22,000 people between 15 and 64 years old. According to the report,76.6% of those surveyed consume alcohol and 10.2% do so daily. Notably, and especially between the ages of 20 and 29, 15.2% consume alcohol in the form of binge eating (4 or 5 drinks in a two-hour period), although it is noteworthy that alcoholic beverages are also the most consumed drug in the working population in other age groups.
The consumption and abuse of alcohol is a relevant issue in terms of public health. Thus, and considering the statistics, it is not surprising that ways are sought to prevent alcohol consumption, especially before the age of 16, the average age of beginning of consumption, and that efforts are made to reduce it once it has started. Usually thedrug treatment and psychotherapyBut recent research could add other ways to reduce binge drinking.
Recent theories suggest that alcohol consumption would be determined by automatic processes that would generate the impulse to drink behavior, and also by controlled processes such as response inhibition or working memory, which would regulate automatic impulses. Hence, it follows that an effective type of intervention in reducing alcohol consumption could be based on the reduction of these automatic processes and training in cognitive control processes.
In this direction point the data published in 2011 in the magazineDrug and Alcohol Dependenceby two Dutch research groups. The study included 52 students classified as heavy alcohol consumers who had to perform a go-no go task in which they had to give an answer (go) or inhibit it (no go) to two different letters that appeared superimposed on a photograph of glasses of beer. It was observed that participants assigned to the ‘beer no-go’ group, where beer photos appeared consistently associated with response inhibition, subsequently showed a stronger association of beer images withnegative affective attributessuch as sadness, boredom, misfortune, depression, or the unpleasant.
But even more importantly, it was observed that those same studentsthey significantly reduced their alcohol consumption in the week after the study.The authors conclude that inhibitory control training through cognitive tasks could be a supplement to existing interventions. Time and more research will tell.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist, Unobrain
