Effect of short-term mindfulness-based stress reduction on sleep quality in male patients with alcohol use disorder

BackgroundSleep disturbance is one of the most prominent complaints of patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD), with more than 70% of patients with AUD reporting an inability to resolve sleep problems during abstinence. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been shown to improve sleep quality and as an alternative therapy to hypnotics for sleep disorders.ObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of short-term MBSR on sleep quality in male patients with AUD after withdrawal.MethodsA total of 91 male patients with AUD after 2 weeks of routine withdrawal therapy were randomly divided into two groups using a coin toss: the treatment group (n = 50) and the control group (n = 41). The control group was received supportive therapy, and the intervention group added with MBSR for 2 weeks on the basis of supportive therapy. Objective sleep quality was measured at baseline and 2 weeks after treatment using the cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC). Indicators related to sleep quality include total sleep time, stable sleep time, unstable sleep time, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep time, wake-up time, stable sleep latency, sleep efficiency, and apnea index. These indicators were compared by an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) between the two groups, controlling for individual differences in the respective measures at baseline.ResultsThe results showed that there were no significant differences in the age [t (89) = –0.541, P = 0.590), BMI [t (89) = –0.925, P = 0.357], educational status [t (89) = 1.802, P = 0.076], years of drinking [t (89) = –0.472, P = 0.638), daily intake [t (89) = 0.892, P = 0.376], types of alcohol [χ2 (1) = 0.071, P = 0.789], scores of CIWA-AR [t (89) = 0.595, P = 0.554], scores of SDS [t (89) = –1.151, P = 0.253), or scores of SAS [t (89) = –1.209, P = 0.230] between the two groups. Moreover, compared with the control group, the total sleep time [F (1.88) = 4.788, P = 0.031) and stable sleep time [F (1.88) = 6.975, P = 0.010] were significantly increased in the treatment group. Furthermore, the average apnea index in the patients who received MBSR was significantly decreased than in the control group [F (1.88) = 5.284, P = 0.024].ConclusionThese results suggest that short-term MBSR could improve sleep quality and may serve as an alternative treatment to hypnotics for sleep disturbance in patients with AUD after withdrawal

Effects of Chronic Alcohol Use Disorder on the Visual Tilt Illusion

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Effects of Chronic Alcohol Use Disorder on the Visual Tilt Illusion

Rationale: Among the serious consequences of alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the reduced ability to process visual information. It is also generally agreed that AUD tends to occur with disturbed excitation–inhibition (EI) balance in the central nervous system. Thus, a specific visual behavioral probe could directly qualify the EI dysfunction in patients with AUD. The tilt illusion (TI) is a paradigmatic example of contextual influences on perception of central target. The phenomenon shows a characteristic dependence on the angle between the inducing surround stimulus and the central target test. For small angles, there is a repulsion effect; for larger angles, there is a smaller attraction effect. The center-surround inhibition in tilt repulsion is considered to come from spatial orientational interactions between orientation-tuned neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1), and tilt attraction is from higher-level effects of orientation processing in the visual information processing.Objectives: The present study focuses on visual spatial information processing and explores whether chronic AUD patients in abstinence period exhibited abnormal TI compared with healthy controls.Methods: The participants are 30 male volunteers (20–46 years old) divided into two groups: the study group consists of 15 clinically diagnosed AUD patients undergoing abstinence from alcohol, and the control group consists of 15 healthy volunteers. The TI consists of a center target surround with an annulus (both target and annulus are sinusoidal grating with spatial frequency = 2 cycles per degree). The visual angle between center and surround is a variable restricted to 0°, ±15°, ±30°, or ±75°. For measuring the TI, participants have to report whether the center target grating orientation tilted clockwise or counterclockwise from the internal vertical orientation by pressing corresponding keys on the computer keyboard. No feedback is provided regarding response correctness.Results: The results reveal significantly weaker tilt repulsion effect under surround orientation ±15° (p &amp;lt; 0.05) and higher lapse rate (attention limitation index) under all tested surround orientations (all ps &amp;lt; 0.05) in patients with chronic AUD compared with health controls.Conclusions: These results provide psychophysical evidence that visual perception of center-contextual stimuli is different between AUD and healthy control groups.</jats:p

Depicting People in Visual Cues Affects Alcohol Cue Reactivity in Male Alcohol-Dependent Patients

Cue reactivity is often used to study alcohol cues brain responses. Standardized image sets are used, but the effect of viewing people interacting with the alcohol drink remains unclear, which is associated with the factors of alcohol cues that influence the degree of response to alcohol stimuli. The present study used fMRI to investigate the reactivity of alcohol dependence (AD) inpatients to alcohol cues with or without human drinking behavior. Cues with a human interacting with a drink were hypothesized to increase sensorimotor activation. In total, 30 AD inpatients were asked to view pictures with a factorial design of beverage types (alcoholic vs. non-alcoholic beverages) and cue types (with or without drink action). Whole-brain analyses were performed. A correlation analysis was conducted to confirm whether the whole-brain analysis revealed cue-related brain activations correlated with problem drinking duration. The left lingual gyrus showed significant beverage types through cue type interaction, and the bilateral temporal cortex showed significant activation in response to alcohol cues depicting human drinking behavior. The right and left lingual gyrus regions and left temporal cortex were positively correlated with problem drinking duration. Sensorimotor activations in the temporal cortex may reflect self-referential and memory-based scene processing. Thus, our findings indicate these regions are associated with alcohol use and suggest them for cue exposure treatment of alcohol addiction

Effect of short-term mindfulness-based stress reduction on sleep quality in male patients with alcohol use disorder

BackgroundSleep disturbance is one of the most prominent complaints of patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD), with more than 70% of patients with AUD reporting an inability to resolve sleep problems during abstinence. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been shown to improve sleep quality and as an alternative therapy to hypnotics for sleep disorders.ObjectiveThe aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of short-term MBSR on sleep quality in male patients with AUD after withdrawal.MethodsA total of 91 male patients with AUD after 2 weeks of routine withdrawal therapy were randomly divided into two groups using a coin toss: the treatment group (n = 50) and the control group (n = 41). The control group was received supportive therapy, and the intervention group added with MBSR for 2 weeks on the basis of supportive therapy. Objective sleep quality was measured at baseline and 2 weeks after treatment using the cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC). Indicators related to sleep quality include total sleep time, stable sleep time, unstable sleep time, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep time, wake-up time, stable sleep latency, sleep efficiency, and apnea index. These indicators were compared by an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) between the two groups, controlling for individual differences in the respective measures at baseline.ResultsThe results showed that there were no significant differences in the age [t (89) = –0.541, P = 0.590), BMI [t (89) = –0.925, P = 0.357], educational status [t (89) = 1.802, P = 0.076], years of drinking [t (89) = –0.472, P = 0.638), daily intake [t (89) = 0.892, P = 0.376], types of alcohol [χ2 (1) = 0.071, P = 0.789], scores of CIWA-AR [t (89) = 0.595, P = 0.554], scores of SDS [t (89) = –1.151, P = 0.253), or scores of SAS [t (89) = –1.209, P = 0.230] between the two groups. Moreover, compared with the control group, the total sleep time [F (1.88) = 4.788, P = 0.031) and stable sleep time [F (1.88) = 6.975, P = 0.010] were significantly increased in the treatment group. Furthermore, the average apnea index in the patients who received MBSR was significantly decreased than in the control group [F (1.88) = 5.284, P = 0.024].ConclusionThese results suggest that short-term MBSR could improve sleep quality and may serve as an alternative treatment to hypnotics for sleep disturbance in patients with AUD after withdrawal.</jats:sec

Depicting People in Visual Cues Affects Alcohol Cue Reactivity in Male Alcohol-Dependent Patients

Cue reactivity is often used to study alcohol cues brain responses. Standardized image sets are used, but the effect of viewing people interacting with the alcohol drink remains unclear, which is associated with the factors of alcohol cues that influence the degree of response to alcohol stimuli. The present study used fMRI to investigate the reactivity of alcohol dependence (AD) inpatients to alcohol cues with or without human drinking behavior. Cues with a human interacting with a drink were hypothesized to increase sensorimotor activation. In total, 30 AD inpatients were asked to view pictures with a factorial design of beverage types (alcoholic vs. non-alcoholic beverages) and cue types (with or without drink action). Whole-brain analyses were performed. A correlation analysis was conducted to confirm whether the whole-brain analysis revealed cue-related brain activations correlated with problem drinking duration. The left lingual gyrus showed significant beverage types through cue type interaction, and the bilateral temporal cortex showed significant activation in response to alcohol cues depicting human drinking behavior. The right and left lingual gyrus regions and left temporal cortex were positively correlated with problem drinking duration. Sensorimotor activations in the temporal cortex may reflect self-referential and memory-based scene processing. Thus, our findings indicate these regions are associated with alcohol use and suggest them for cue exposure treatment of alcohol addiction.</jats:p

Factors Determining Zooplankton Assemblage Difference Among a Man-made Lake, Connecting Canals, and the Water-origin River

Zooplankton play an important role in the pelagic food web as a mediator of nutrient and energy fluxes. Understanding factors determining zooplankton abundance, composition, and dispersal provides information needed for improving plankton dynamic predictions and enhancing effective water resource management and biodiversity conservation. We studied zooplankton dispersal and identified factors influence zooplankton composition and abundance under a unique in situ environment with four connected water types from the natural river to a man-made main canal, then interior canal-web, and finally lake that have different flow regimes. We found that, after seven years creation of the water system and zooplankton community development, the main canal, interior canal-web, and lake had 53%–64% zooplankton taxa similar to their water origin river but that each water type was represented and dominated by different zooplankton taxa. Our optimal model identified three key local factors that affected the difference in zooplankton abundance and composition among the four water types: Chlorophyll a concentration, turbidity, and salinity. We concluded that both zooplankton dispersal through watercourse and species sorting by local factors were important for structuring communities in our study system. Since most studies on dispersal and influence of local factors on zooplankton assemblages in new environment have been done largely in temporal ponds, our findings provide unique insights on how zooplankton communities are jointly regulated by their species dispersal origins and local environmental factors in newly created canals and lakes