Comprehensive Summary
This study examined how the brain supports response inhibition in individuals with mild to moderate alcohol use disorder. Participants completed a task that required them to either respond quickly or withhold a response while EEG activity was recorded. Contrary to expectations, individuals with alcohol use disorder showed slightly better inhibitory performance, particularly in situations where automatic responses needed to be suppressed. This behavioral pattern was associated with distinct alpha band connectivity, characterized by stronger top-down communication from frontal control regions to areas involved in attention and visual processing. In contrast, theta band connectivity, which is often linked to conflict monitoring, did not form a distributed network in the alcohol use disorder group and was mainly observed in healthy controls.
Outcomes and Implications
The findings suggest that people with mild to moderate alcohol use disorder may not simply lose inhibitory control. Instead, they rely on different brain strategies to manage it. They appear to engage stronger top-down control to filter out distracting information when stopping a response becomes difficult rather than showing clear deficits. From a clinical perspective, this shifts how early alcohol use disorder is understood. This emphasizes changes in brain organization rather than outright failure of control. Recognizing these subtle neural adaptations could help identify individuals at risk earlier and guide interventions that target specific brain networks before more pronounced cognitive problems emerge.