Memory biases in alcohol use disorder: enhanced memory for contexts associated with alcohol prospectively predicts alcohol use outcomes

Memory for prior drinking experiences may powerfully drive later alcohol use in familiar drinking contexts, yet we know little about what patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) remember of alcohol-related episodes. Although animal and theoretical models of addiction emphasize the importance of different memory systems for understanding maladaptive use, clinical research parsing what AUD patients remember from alcohol-related episodes is lacking. The current study applied a novel memory task in which moderate drinkers (N = 30) and treatment-seeking individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD: N = 29) encoded associations between photographs of objects (alcoholic beverages and neutral items) and photographs of neutral scenes. At least 24 h later, two types of memory were assessed: item memory (object recognition) and associative memory (cued recognition of scenes associated with objects). To assess which memories predicted drinking, real-world behavior was assessed in patients with AUD at baseline and for 4 weeks following memory tests. Despite demographic differences, the results showed broadly impaired item memory in AUD compared with moderate drinkers (p