ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1496519
This article is part of the Research TopicSubstance Use Disorder: Above and Beyond Addiction, Volume IIView all 28 articles
Inhibitory control is affected by reward and punishment in alcohol use disorder patients
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Public Health, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
- 2Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Shandong Daizhuang Hospital, Jining, Shandong Province, China
- 3University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands, Netherlands
- 4Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells and Systems, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- 5Department of Psychology, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
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Introduction: The present study aimed to investigate the effects of reward and punishment on inhibitory control in the alcohol use disorder (AUD) group and healthy control group.Methods: Eighteen male patients with AUD and twenty-one age- and education-matched male healthy controls were recruited for the study. Participants engaged in the two-choice oddball paradigm, which included reward, punishment, and neutral conditions. Participants were asked to respond differently to standard and deviant stimuli as accurately and quickly as possible.Results: For reaction time measures, deviant - standard difference of the healthy control group did not show any difference; however, deviant - standard difference of the AUD group was significantly larger in the reward condition than in the neutral condition. For accuracy measures, deviant - standard difference of the healthy control group did not show any difference; however, deviant - standard difference of the AUD group was significantly larger in the neutral condition than in the reward condition, indicating a greater decline in accuracy for deviant stimuli.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated that either reward nor punishment effectively enhanced inhibitory control in AUD patients. Notably, the reward condition was associated with a further decline in inhibitory control. It is advisable to avoid relying solely on reward- or punishment-based behavioral correction strategies, as they might heighten psychological stress and negative emotions, potentially worsening deficits in inhibitory control.
Keywords: Alcohol Use Disorder1, reward2, punishment3, inhibitory control4, Oddball5
Received: 14 Sep 2024; Accepted: 19 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Cai, Liu, Jia and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Liping Jia, Department of Psychology, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
Guohua Lu, Department of Psychology, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, China
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