Multiple behavioural impulsivity tasks predict prospective alcohol involvement in adolescents

Gordon Fernie,Margot Peeters,Matt Field,Jon C. Cole,Paul Christiansen,Harry Sumnall,Matthew J. Gullo

doi:10.1111/add.12283

Abstract

AimsWe investigated reciprocal prospective relationships between multiple behavioural impulsivity tasks (assessing delay discounting, risk-taking and disinhibition) and alcohol involvement (consumption, drunkenness and problems) among adolescents. We hypothesized that performance on the tasks would predict subsequent alcohol involvement, and that alcohol involvement would lead to increases in behavioural impulsivity over time.DesignCross-lagged prospective design in which impulsivity and alcohol involvement were assessed five times over 2 years (once every 6 months, on average).SettingClassrooms in secondary schools in North West England.ParticipantsTwo hundred and eighty-seven adolescents (51.2% male) who were aged 12 or 13 years at study enrolment.MeasurementsParticipants reported their alcohol involvement and completed computerized tasks of disinhibition, delay discounting and risk-taking at each assessment. Cross-sectional and prospective relationships between the variables of interest were investigated using cross-lagged analyses.FindingsAll behavioural impulsivity tasks predicted a composite index of alcohol involvement 6 months later (all Ps < 0.01), and these prospective relationships were reliable across the majority of time-points. Importantly, we did not observe the converse relationship across time: alcohol involvement did not predict performance on behavioural impulsivity tasks at any subsequent time point.ConclusionsSeveral measures of impulsivity predict escalation in alcohol involvement in young adolescents, but alcohol use does not appear to alter impulsivity.

Highlights

There are several distinct facets of behavioural impulsivity, many of which overlap with subcomponents of executivefunction [1]
Impulsive decision-making can be assessed with delay discounting procedures, in which participants make choices between small rewards that are available immediately versus larger rewards that are available after a delay [2]
Participants were first asked whether they had ever had a proper alcoholic drink (‘a whole drink, not just a sip’ [11]). If they answered ‘yes’, participants indicated how often they had consumed alcohol over the previous 6 months, using a question taken from the Adolescent Alcohol Involvement Scale [28], and they estimated the number of times they ‘got drunk’ during this period

Summary

INTRODUCTION

There are several distinct facets of behavioural impulsivity, many of which overlap with subcomponents of executive (dys)function [1]. Neuroimaging studies have shown that adolescents, relative to adults and young children, show a heightened neural response to rewards in the nucleus accumbens [21,22] This heightened sensitivity occurs within the context of immature processing of reward and risk within the orbitofrontal cortex, a key region involved in inhibitory control [22,23]. These features of brain development may render adolescents vulnerable to increased disinhibition, impulsive decision-making and risk-taking as consequences of heavy drinking. We predicted that (i) individual differences in impulsivity would predict alcohol involvement at subsequent time-points, and (ii) individual differences in alcohol involvement would predict impulsivity at subsequent time-points

METHOD

Procedure

Findings

DISCUSSION