Emotion-related learning in individuals prenatally exposed to alcohol: an investigation of the relation between set shifting, extinction of responses, and behavior.

The association between deficits in emotion-related learning, conceptual set shifting, and behavioral problems was investigated in individuals with substantial prenatal alcohol exposure. Twenty subjects with confirmed prenatal alcohol exposure (10 of whom were diagnosed as having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and 20 normal controls matched for age, gender, and ethnic background participated. The two groups were administered a battery of tests including two tests of emotion-related learning (visual discrimination reversal and extinction of reward-response associations), tests of conceptual set shifting and intellectual ability, and behavioral measures. The alcohol-exposed group made fewer reversals than the control group in visual discrimination reversal and exhibited more variability in extinction. These group differences remained significant after controlling for intellectual ability and conceptual set shifting. Variability in extinction and two measures of set shifting, perseverative errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and omission errors on reversal learning, were found to be robust predictors of parent-rated behavioral problems.