ReviewAlcoholism, clinical and experimental research2022
A critical review of front-loading: A maladaptive drinking pattern driven by alcohol's rewarding effects.
Review in Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Preclinical and clinical sex differences in the effects of alcohol on measures of brain dopamine: a systematic review.Biology of sex differences · 2025Pooled it
- Cued unpredictable intermittent access exacerbates loss of control over ethanol drinking.Neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Cued unpredictable intermittent access exacerbates loss of control over ethanol drinking.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- BDNF restores impaired long-term potentiation of GABAergic synapses induced by chronic ethanol exposure in the VTA and attenuates reward-seeking behavior.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Argument for the pharmacokinetically-informed preclinical researcher: A commentary for Alcohol.Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Procedural separation of appetitive and consummatory behaviors in operant ethanol self-administration: A review and open-source analytical framework.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2026Review
- Predicting alcohol consumption and reward sensitivity using responses for natural sucrose reward in non-food-restricted rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Alcohol consumption in P301S mice accelerates gait impairments, modifies aggregation of pathological tau and alters microglia within the hippocampus.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
- Alcohol drinking is associated with greater calcium activity in mouse central amygdala dynorphin-expressing neurons.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Pace of alcohol drinking during in natural-environment drinking is associated with heightened alcohol-related reward and negative consequences in risky drinkers.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Selective effects of oxytocin on alcohol drinking in subpopulations of male and female mice following intermittent predator stress.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2025Article
- Escalation of intravenous fentanyl self-administration and assessment of withdrawal behavior in male and female mice.Psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- KAlcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Repeated footshock stress enhances cocaine self-administration in male and female rats: Role of the cannabinoid receptor 1.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- Peripheral alcohol metabolism dictates ethanol consumption and drinking microstructure in mice.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Article
- Species differences in comorbid alcohol use disorder and major depressive disorder: A narrative review.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Review
- Evaluating the impact of concurrent sucrose availability on operant ethanol self-administration in male and female Long Evans rats.Addiction neuroscience · 2025Article
- Individual and sex differences in frontloading behavior and approach- avoidance conflict preference predict addiction-like ethanol seeking in rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Diminished reward circuit response underlies pain avoidance learning deficits in problem drinkers.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2025Article
- Fentanyl self-administration is accelerated by methamphetamine co-use and results in worsened hypodopaminergia in male, but not female rats.The European journal of neuroscience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Front-loading is a drinking pattern in which alcohol intake is skewed toward the onset of reward access. This phenomenon has been reported across several different alcohol self-administration protocols in a wide variety of species, including humans. The hypothesis of the current review is that front-loading emerges in response to the rewarding effects of alcohol and can be used to measure the motivation to consume alcohol. Alternative or additional hypotheses that we consider and contrast with the main hypothesis are that: (1) front-loading is directed at overcoming behavioral and/or metabolic tolerance and (2) front-loading is driven by negative reinforcement. Evidence for each of these explanations is reviewed. We also consider how front-loading has been evaluated statistically in previous research and make recommendations for defining this intake pattern in future studies. Because front-loading may predict long-term maladaptive alcohol drinking patterns leading to the development of alcohol use disorder (AUD), several future directions are proposed to elucidate the relationship between front-loading and AUD.
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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.