The effects of arousal on disinhibition suggest an alternative explanation for the increased disinhibition that is seen following exposure to substance-related cues, given that it is well-established that substance-related cues lead to increased physiological arousal (62). Therefore, the mechanism through which substance-related cues lead to increased disinhibition may be as simple as increased arousal, a hypothesis which should be investigated in future research. We conclude this section by noting that substance-related cues, stressors, and highly arousing emotional events (which could be either positive or negative) are known to precipitate relapse to drug-seeking (79) and state fluctuations in disinhibition are a plausible mechanism to explain these effects. However, to our knowledge no research has assessed whether fluctuations in disinhibition caused by substance-related cues, stress, or arousal directly mediate drug-seeking.
