Investigating Neurobiological Mechanisms of Chess as an Add-On Treatment against Alcohol Use Disorder

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sabine Vollstädt-Klein
• Subject Area: Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 421888313

Damaging alcohol consumption is responsible for 5.9% of all deaths globaly. Moreover, alcohol plays a central role in more than 200 other types of diseases and injuries. Characteristic features of alcohol use disorder (AUD) include maladaptive patterns of consumption and repeated, serious negative consequences associated with this consumption. Beyond the compulsion to consume a substance, the individual loses control over regulating substance consumption. However, the sizable percentage of addicted patients maintaining lifetime abstinence indicates that a compulsive drive to consume substances can be overcome by a robust inhibitory control.Inhibitory control can be strengthened by "Cognitive remediation" (Cognitive remediation therapy, CRT), a psychotherapeutic approach in which the goal is improvement of cognitive deficits. Cognitive training exercises span functional domains from executive functioning (inhibition, decision-making, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) to attention. Other terms for cognitive remediation therapy are cognitive enhancement therapy and cognitive rehabilitation.The current project aims to investigate the potential mechanism of action of chess as CRT to reduce cognitive deficits in individuals with AUD seeking treatment using neurobiological and neuropsychological approaches. Furthermore, we will assess whether this chess intervention has a generalized positive effect on short-term abstinence. Interestingly, the functional domains and associated underlying neuronal networks observed to be affected in individuals with AUD overlap significantly with those that could be strengthened by chess-based cognitive training or formal chess. Specifically, strengthening of cortical control regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and brain areas relevant for decision-making (orbitofrontal cortex) could prevent future relapse. Besides the improvement of cognitive functioning itself, one mechanism of action of CRT might be the interaction between cognitive, affective and psychosocial functioning, which will be examined in a secondary exploratory research approach. Taken together, chess as an add-on therapy to complement other standard treatments of AUD could lead to improved therapeutic outcomes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants