Trial reportPsychopharmacology2018
A high working memory load prior to memory retrieval reduces craving in non-treatment seeking problem drinkers.
Trial report in Psychopharmacology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03868501 (High Working Memory Load to Reduce IGD Cravings), which is not on this map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
High Working Memory Load to Reduce IGD Cravings: N-Back Task
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring Post-Retrieval Strategies to Reduce Drug Craving in Methamphetamine Use Disorders.Addiction biology · 2025Trial
- Exploring gender differences in tobacco cue-induced craving and heart rate variability in individuals with a tobacco use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2026Article
- The reducing effect of visuospatial cognitive load on alcohol craving in problematic drinkers.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- New Approaches to Addiction Treatment Based on Learning and Memory.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- New Approaches for Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment via Memory Retrieval and Reconsolidation Manipulations.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- The Moderating Role of Sex in the Relation between Cue-Induced Craving and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in the Salience Network of Non-Clinically Diagnosed Drinkers.European addiction research · 2023Article
- Targeting the Reconsolidation of Licit Drug Memories to Prevent Relapse: Focus on Alcohol and Nicotine.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Striatal alcohol cue-reactivity is stronger in male than female problem drinkers.The European journal of neuroscience · 2019Article
- Bias Toward Drug-Related Stimuli Is Affected by Loading Working Memory in Abstinent Ex-Methamphetamine Users.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Article
- Increased Neural Activity in Hazardous Drinkers During High Workload in a Visual Working Memory Task: A Preliminary Assessment Through Event-Related Potentials.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Article
- Reconsolidation blockade for the treatment of addiction: challenges, new targets, and opportunities.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundReconsolidation-based interventions have been suggested to be a promising treatment strategy for substance use disorders. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a working memory intervention to interfere with the reconsolidation of alcohol-related memories in a sample of non-treatment seeking heavy drinkers.
methodsParticipants were randomized to one of the two conditions that underwent a 3-day intervention: in the experimental condition, a 30-min working memory training was performed immediately after a 15-min memory retrieval session (i.e., within the memory reconsolidation time-window), whereas in the control condition, the working memory training was performed prior to a memory retrieval session.
resultsIn contrast to our original hypothesis, a high working memory load after memory retrieval did not interfere with the reconsolidation of those memories while a high working memory load prior to memory retrieval (the original control condition) strongly reduced retrieval-induced craving and craving for alcohol at follow-up.
conclusionWhereas the neurocognitive mechanism behind this effect needs to be further investigated, the current findings suggest that, if replicated, working memory training prior to addiction-related memory retrieval has the potential to become an effective (adjunctive) intervention in the treatment of substance use disorders.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.