Biased attentional processing associated with concurrent disorders : an event-related potential study

Background: Several studies have shown that substance use disorders are characterized by an enhanced attention processing of substance and substance-related cues, with lower attentional processing of non-substance-related affective cues. Additionally, previous research has shown that attentional processing, within addiction, is malleable and can reverse from enhanced processing of substance cues to pleasant cues following prolonged abstinence. This study examines the neural processing of stimulant, pleasant, and stimulant relative to pleasant cues in individuals with a concurrent diagnosis of mental health and substance use disorders (i.e., concurrent disorders) compared to controls using event-related potentials (ERPs). Methods: Within in-patient individuals with concurrent disorders (n = 33) and a control group (n = 32), we studied the P300 amplitude elicited by stimulant (stimulant – neutral), pleasant (pleasant – neutral), stimulant relative to pleasant (stimulant – pleasant) cues. Additionally, individuals completed surveys and tasks to examine the implications of diagnoses, self-reported craving, cognitive function, and affect. Results: The results indicate that in-patient participants with concurrent disorder display a larger P300 difference wave for stimulant and pleasant cues, which remained significant after controlling for age, ethnicity, and working memory, compared to controls. Conclusions: These findings suggest that larger P300 amplitudes for stimulant and pleasant cues may be explaining emotional dysregulation within concurrent disorders. Together these findings suggest that non-invasive electrophysiological measures, such as EEG, may be used within future research to investigate the differences in concurrent disorder, mental health, and substance use disorders alone, necessary for identifying shared processes among these disorders.Medicine, Faculty ofGraduat