Experience-Dependent Neuropsychological Recovery and the Treatment of Alcoholism

Accumulating research has shown that some cognitive deficits in recently abstinent alcoholics (e.g., cognitive flexibility, acquisition of novel skills) improve only with remediation in contrast to the spontaneous, time-dependent rebound seen for other tasks. In principle, this facilitated or experience-dependent recovery should enhance acquisition of the content of alcoholism treatment programs, but this relationship has yet to be tested empirically; previous research assessed recovery using only neuropsychological tasks presented by an experimenter. The current investigation focused on treatment-relevant remediation (acquisition of the content of a relapse-prevention [RP] program) using tasks administered by self-guided workbooks. Four groups of male alcoholics received pre- and posttesting. Between the two testing sessions, the groups received neuropsychological remediation tasks ( n = 15), ecologically relevant tasks ( n = 15), attention-placebo tasks ( n = 16), or no intervention ( n = 15). Results showed that exposure to both types of remediation produced significant cognitive recovery, with skills transferring to posttest neuropsychological measures and RP acquisition. Hence, cognitive remediation may facilitate alcoholism treatment.