title: Overactivation of the Pupillary Response to Emotional Information in Short- and Long-Term Alcohol Abstinent Patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of the study was to compare emotional information processing in patients with severe alcohol use disorder in short-term abstinence (<1 month) and long-term abstinence (at least 6 months to 9 years) with control participants.
  
  
  METHODS
  We studied the variation in pupil diameter during the presentation of pictures of human interactions associated with positive, negative or neutral valences.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the results of the short-term abstinent group revealed greater pupil dilation regardless of the valence of the pictures while the pupillary response of long-term abstainers did not differ from the control group. More specifically, according to each valence, the pupil response to neutral pictures was greater for both patient groups than for controls. For the long-term abstainers, a negative correlation was found between the length of abstinence and the pupillary response to emotional stimuli.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In long-term abstainers group, the high activation by neutral stimuli suggests however some difficulties in the processing of nonemotional stimuli, considered emotional ones and may constitute a potential relapse factor or the maintenance of addiction.
authors.affiliation: University of Lille, SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Claisse
authors.affiliation: Department of Addictology, University Hospital of Lille, Lille, France.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lewkowicz
authors.affiliation: University of Lille, SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France Intelligent Robotics Groups, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Cottencin
authors.affiliation: University of Lille, SCALab, CNRS UMR 9193, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France Jean-louis.nandrino@univ-lille3.fr.
authors.forename: Jean-Louis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Nandrino
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D064829:Alcohol Abstinence; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012025:Reflex, Pupillary / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult