Abstract
Risk for substance use disorder (SUD) is associated with poor response inhibition and heightened reward sensitivity. During adolescence, incentives improve performance on response inhibition tasks and increase recruitment of cortical control areas (Geier et al., 2010) associated with SUD (Chung et al., 2011). However, it is unknown whether incentives moderate the relationship between response inhibition and trait-level psychopathology and personality features of substance use risk. We examined these associations in the current project using a rewarded antisaccade (AS) task (Geier et al., 2010) in youth at risk for substance use. Participants were 116 adolescents and young adults (ages 12–21) from the University of Pittsburgh site of the National Consortium on Adolescent Neurodevelopment and Alcohol [NCANDA] study, with neuroimaging data collected at baseline and 1 year follow up visits. Building upon previous work using this task in normative developmental samples (Geier et al., 2010) and adolescents with SUD (Chung et al., 2011), we examined both trial-wise BOLD responses and those associated with individual task-epochs (cue presentation, response preparation, and response) and associated them with multiple substance use risk factors (externalizing and internalizing psychopathology, family history of substance use, and trait impulsivity). Results showed that externalizing psychopathology and high levels of trait impulsivity (positive urgency, SUPPS-P) were associated with general decreases in antisaccade performance. Accompanying this main effect of poor performance, positive urgency was associated with reduced recruitment of the frontal eye fields (FEF) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in both a priori regions of interest and at the voxelwise level. Consistent with previous work, monetary incentive improved antisaccade behavioral performance and was associated with increased activation in the striatum and cortical control areas. However, incentives did not moderate the association between response inhibition behavioral performance and any trait-level psychopathology and personality factor of substance use risk. Reward interactions were observed for BOLD responses at the task-epoch level, however, they were inconsistent across substance use risk types. The results from this study may suggest poor response inhibition and heightened reward sensitivity are not overlapping neurocognitive features of substance use risk. Alternatively, more subtle, common longitudinal processes might jointly explain reward sensitivity and response inhibition deficits in substance use risk.
Highlights
Poor response inhibition and heightened reward sensitivity have been suggested as neurobiological risk factors for problematic substance use (Heitzeg et al, 2015)
We focused on the SUPPS-P scales of negative and positive urgency as the urgency domain has been associated with substance use (Zapolski et al, 2009) and BOLD activation in a rewarded stop signal task (Wilbertz et al, 2014)
Externalizing risk and positive urgency remained significant predictors when exceeds threshold drinking (ETD) and the other substance use risk factors were entered into a multivariate model, suggesting that EXT and positive urgency were each independently associated with AS correct response rate controlling for other variables
Summary
Poor response inhibition and heightened reward sensitivity have been suggested as neurobiological risk factors for problematic substance use (Heitzeg et al, 2015). Functional brain development supports the integration of these processes, which may influence risk for substance use initiation (Heitzeg et al, 2015; Luna and Wright, 2016). Neuroimaging research in adolescents suggests substance use risk is associated with reduced BOLD activation in cortical brain regions supporting cognitive control. Poor response inhibition (c.f., Nigg et al, 2006) and reduced prefrontal BOLD activation (Norman et al, 2011) during adolescence may serve as risk factors for escalation to problematic substance use later in development
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