The sight, smell and taste of a favorite drink can spark strong cravings to recovering alcoholics. Responses to these cues, which to a recovering alcoholic are associated with the positive aspects of drinking, are a leading cause of relapse. 

In a new study, using a behavioral animal model, researchers have found that the physical surroundings where alcohol cues are experienced can greatly influence the ability to trigger relapse.

Lead author of this study, Nadia Chaudhri, Ph.D., of the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UCSF, and colleagues, taught rats to learn that a brief tone signaled when a small amount of alcohol would be available in a fluid receptacle for them to drink. This learning occurred in a distinct environment, the appearance, smell, and lighting of this environment where kept consistent. The rats where then placed in a second environment with a different appearance, smell, and lighting, and were repeatedly exposed to the same tone but never given alcohol. 

The rats soon learned that in this new environment the tone no longer predicted alcohol and consequently stopped checking the fluid receptacle. When the rates were re-exposed to the original environment, where alcohol was available, and the tone was presented, the rates immediately checked the fluid receptacle. Chaudhri stated of the findings, “This finding demonstrates the power of environment to trigger relapse to alcohol-seeking in response to alcohol-predictive cues, this effect is highly detrimental to humans who are trying to abstain from drinking.” 

The authors also found that the capacity of an alcohol-associated environment to trigger relapse to alcohol cues can be greatly diminished by resenting the cues repeatedly in multiple distinct environments without alcohol. This technique of extinguishing responses to alcohol cues in multiple environments could greatly increase the efficacy of current behavioral treatments for alcoholism. Editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated with both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, John H. Krystal, M.D., elaborates on this idea, explaining, “it is possible that exposure-based therapies could occur in a broader range of contexts so as to enhance their effectiveness. These contexts could be real, i.e., visiting bars or liquor stores, could be created using virtual reality techniques, or could simply be created by patients as they imagined visiting places that triggered their urges to drink.” 

Additional research is needed to determine the effectiveness of such techniques, but these findings indicate that this may be a promising form of treatment and addiction therapy.

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