The impact of emotional context on cognitive processing in the group of suicidal alcoholics

Mojca Šoštarič
Institute of Medical Sciences, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia

coauthor: Lilijana Šprah

Several studies have attempted to understand the link among substance abuse and suicidal behaviour. Although alcohol dependence is a potent risk factor for suicide, the impact of emotional states that might selectively modulate some components of cognitive control (attention, response inhibition, social cognition) associated with "suicidal state of mind" is still unclear. The aim of the present study was to determine the influence of different emotional contexts on cognitive processing in the group of suicidal alcoholics. Go/No-Go and Emotional Go/No-Go Tasks, Emotional Recognition Task, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Behavioural Inhibition/Activation Scale (BIS/BAS) were applied on groups of suicidal and non-suicidal alcoholics in order to examine the impact of stimuli with positive and negative emotional valence on attention and inhibitory function.
Suicidal alcoholics expressed more depressive symptoms, higher BIS levels, a trend towards low BAS levels, lower emotion recognition ability (especially for fear) and prolonged reaction times on emotional Go/No-Go task with positive emotional stimuli compared to non-suicidal alcoholics. Our findings confirmed some previous studies, which suggested that overactive behavioural inhibition and deficient activation system in depressive patients lead to up-regulation of negative emotions and withdrawal responses. These specific changes in affective style could be associated with emotion recognition impairment and emotional rigidity. Furthermore, the shift in attention and inhibition control, reflected in slower responses to positive emotional stimuli in the group of suicidal alcoholics could be explained with attention bias towards negative affects and lower ability to regulate positive emotional context. The manner in which emotional and cognitive processes interact is an important step towards understanding suicidal ideations and behaviour. Our study demonstrated some cognitive characteristics of "suicidal state of mind" in the group of suicidal alcoholics that could be associated with some brain changes due to chronic alcohol abuse (cortical and hippocampal atrophy, cerebellar degeneration, decreased serotonine activity).

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Keywords: cognitive processing, emotional context, suicide, alcohol addiction, behavioural inhibition, emotion recognition