Inhibitory control and heavy drinking in young college students: an electrophysiological study from dual processing mode

Binge Drinking (BD) can be defined as a pattern of intermittent and intensive alcohol consumption, whereby, within a few hours, blood alcohol concentrations above 0.08g/dl are reached. BD is highly prevalent among young people and adolescents. During critical developmental stages such as early adulthood, neurotoxic effects of alcohol might be especially deleterious.
Neurocognitive dual-process models propose that substance use disorders and risk behaviors during adolescence may be the result of the imbalance between two interrelated systems: the automatic-affective system (involved in motivational and affective processing) and the reflective system (related to inhibitory control). On this basis, the aim of this thesis was to assess the electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition and its interaction with the processing of alcohol related stimuli in a sample of university students (18 years old) who are binge drinkers. To this end, the electrophysiological activity was recorded during the execution of a beverage cued Go/NoGo task. There were no differences between groups in task execution. Voltage analysis of the event related potentials (ERP) and functional connectivity (CF) analysis revealed the presence of anomalies that suggest that, in the BD group, the reflective system could be recruiting compensatory neural resources to be able to counteract the overactivation of the automatic-affective system. The results showed that BD group had larger ERP amplitudes (N2-NoGo) and several patterns of functional hyperconnectivity (in theta and fast beta frequency bands) mainly related to conflict monitoring and top-down control during satisfactory inhibition of the prepotent motor response. These were modulated in a specific manner by the motivational content of the stimuli.