Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Neurophysiological Measures and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD): Hypothesizing Links between Clinical Severity Index and Molecular Neurobiological Patterns

¹Alcohol Addiction Program Latium Region Referral Center, Sapienza University of Rome

²Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine and Veterans Administration System, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

³Department of Psychiatry & McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, College of Medicine , Gainesville, Florida, USA

⁴Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, NY, New York, New York, USA

⁵Department of Addiction Research & Therapy, Malibu Beach Recovery Center, Malibu Beach, California, USA

⁶Department of Psychiatry & Human Integrated Services Unit University of Vermont Center for Clinical & Translational Science, College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont, USA

⁷Department of Nutrigenomics, RD Solutions, LLC, La Jolla, California, USA

⁸Department of Personalized Medicine, IGENE, LLC, Austin, Texas, USA

⁹Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, Rhode Island, USA

¹⁰Basic & Clinical Research Center, Victory Nutrition, LLC., Austin, Texas, USA

Corresponding Authors:

Kenneth Blum
Department of Psychiatry & McKnight Brain Institute
University of Florida, College of Medicine
Gainesville, Florida, USA
Tel: 619-890-2167
E-Mail: drd2gene@gmail.com

 

Mauro Ceccanti
Alcohol Addiction Program Latium Region Referral Center
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
E-Mail: mauro.ceccanti@uniroma1.it

Received date: March 13, 2014; Accepted date: April 16, 2014; Published date: April 26, 2014

Copyright: © 2014 Vitali M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: In 1987, Cloninger proposed a clinical description and classification of different personality traits genetically defined and independent from each other. Moreover, he elaborated a specific test the TCI to investigate these traits/states. The study of craving in Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) assumed a greater significance, since ever more data seems to suggest a direct correlation between high levels of craving and a higher risk of relapse in alcoholics. Thus, our study aim is to explore the possible correlations among TCI linked molecular neurobiological pattern (s), craving and alcohol addiction severity measures in a sample of Italian alcoholics.

Materials and Methods: 191 alcoholics were recruited in a Day Hospital (DH) setting at the Alcohol Addiction Program Latium Region Referral Center, Sapienza University of Rome. After 7 days detoxification treatment a psychodiagnostic protocol was administered, including TCI, VAS-C, ASI and SADQ. All patients signed an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved informed consent.

Results: Principally, we detected a significant positive correlation between HA-scale scores and the VAS scale: increasing in HA-scale corresponds to an increase in craving perception for both intensity (r=0.310; p ≤ 0.001) and frequency (r=0.246; p ≤ 0.001). Moreover, perception of dependence severity, measured with SADQ was also found to be significantly associated positively to both HA-scale (r=0.246; p ≤ 0.001) and NS-scale (r=0.224; p ≤ 0.01). While, for character scales, Persistence (r=-0.195; p=.008) and Self-directedness (r=-0.294; p ≤ 0.001) was negatively associated with ASI linked to alcohol problems. Self-directedness was also negatively correlated with ASI linked to family and social problems (r=-0.349; p ≤ 0.001), employment and support problems (r=-0.220; p=0.003) and psychiatric problems (r=-0.358; p ≤ 0.001). Cooperativeness was a negative correlate with Legal Problems (r=-0.173; p=0.019). and Self- Transcendence was positive correlated with Medical Problems (r=0.276; p ≤ 0.001)

Conclusions: In view of recent addiction neurobiological theories, such as the “Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS)” and the Koob model, our data could suggest that our cohort of patients could possibly be in a particular stage of the course of their addiction history. Thus, if our hypothesis will be confirmed, the TCI-based assessment of alcoholics would allow an optimization of the treatment. Clinicians understanding these newer concepts will be able to translate this information to their patients and potentially enhance clinical outcome (s), because it could suggest a functional hypothesis of neurotransmitter circuits that helps to frame the patient in his/her history of addiction.

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