Alcohol Use Disorder, But Not Cannabis Use Disorder, Symptomatology in Adolescents Is Associated With Reduced Differential Responsiveness to Reward Versus Punishment Feedback During Instrumental Learning

The two most commonly used illegal substances by adolescents in the United States are alcohol and cannabis. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and cannabis use disorder (CUD) have been associated with dysfunction in decision-making processes in adolescents. One potential mechanism for these impairments is t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychiatry : cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging 2020-06, Vol.5 (6), p.610-618
Main Authors: Aloi, Joseph, Blair, Karina S., Crum, Kathleen I., Bashford-Largo, Johannah, Zhang, Ru, Lukoff, Jennie, Carollo, Erin, White, Stuart F., Hwang, Soonjo, Filbey, Francesca M., Dobbertin, Matthew, Blair, R. James R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Alcohol use disorder
Alcoholism
Cannabis
Conditioning, Operant
Feedback
fMRI
Humans
Instrumental learning
Punishment
Reward
Striatum
United States
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Summary:The two most commonly used illegal substances by adolescents in the United States are alcohol and cannabis. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and cannabis use disorder (CUD) have been associated with dysfunction in decision-making processes in adolescents. One potential mechanism for these impairments is thought to be related to abnormalities in reward and punishment processing. However, very little work has directly examined potential differential relationships between AUD and CUD symptom severity and neural dysfunction during decision making in adolescents. In the current study, 154 youths participated in a passive avoidance learning task during functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the relationship between relative severity of AUD/CUD and dysfunction in processing reward and punishment feedback. Increasing Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test scores were associated with reduced neural differentiation between reward and punishment feedback within regions of striatum, posterior cingulate cortex, and parietal cortex. However, increasing Cannabis Use Disorder Identification Test scores were not associated with any neural dysfunction during the passive avoidance task. These data expand on emerging literature that relative severity of AUD is associated with reduced responsivity to rewards in adolescents and that there are differential associations between AUD and CUD symptoms and neurocircuitry dysfunction in the developing adolescent brain.
ISSN:2451-9022
2451-9030
2451-9030
DOI:10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.02.003