Is disinhibition implicated in cue reactivity? Papachristou et al. (67) demonstrated that individual differences in disinhibition (as assessed with a Stop Signal task) moderated cue-provoked craving: individuals exhibiting greater disinhibition showed a greater increase in craving following cue reactivity. In a subsequent study with alcohol-dependent patients, disinhibition predicted 13% of the variance (68) in peak craving following cue exposure. These studies demonstrate that individual differences in disinhibition can moderate the strength of subjective responses to alcohol cues, but they do not tell us if alcohol-related cues lead to increased disinhibition, and if cue-induced increases in disinhibition mediate other aspects of cue reactivity such as subjective craving and drug self-administration. To our knowledge, the only study to investigate this issue was recently performed by our group. We found that alcohol cues increased subjective alcohol craving and self-administration of alcohol, but had no effect on disinhibition; furthermore, disinhibition after cue exposure was correlated with the strength of craving, but was unrelated to alcohol self-administration (66). Therefore, additional research is required to investigate whether state disinhibition might mediate the effects of alcohol cues on craving and drinking behavior.
