Abstract
Current cognitive-motivational addiction theories propose that prioritizing appetitive, reward-related information (attentional bias) plays a vital role in substance abuse behavior. Previous cross-sectional research has shown that adolescent substance use is related to reward-related attentional biases. The present study was designed to extend these findings by testing whether these reward biases have predictive value for adolescent substance use at three-year follow-up. Participants (N = 657, mean age = 16.2 yrs at baseline) were a sub-sample of Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), a large longitudinal community cohort study. We used a spatial orienting task as a behavioral index of appetitive-related attentional processes at baseline and a substance use questionnaire at both baseline and three years follow-up. Bivariate correlational analyses showed that enhanced attentional engagement with cues that predicted potential reward and nonpunishment was positively associated with substance use (alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis) three years later. However, reward bias was not predictive of changes in substance use. A post-hoc analysis in a selection of adolescents who started using illicit drugs (other than cannabis) in the follow-up period demonstrated that stronger baseline attentional engagement toward cues of nonpunishment was related to a higher level of illicit drug use three years later. The finding that reward bias was not predictive for the increase in substance use in adolescents who already started using substances at baseline, but did show prognostic value in adolescents who initiated drug use in between baseline and follow-up suggests that appetitive bias might be especially important in the initiation stages of adolescent substance use.
Highlights
Substance abuse and dependence are major problems at both the individual and the societal level
Our first hypothesis was that prospective substance use would be predicted by baseline engagement toward both rewarding cues and cues of nonpunishment
The hierarchical regression analysis showed gender, and baseline substance use predicted unique variance of adolescent substance use three years later, but the engagement and disengagement scores showed no predictive validity on top of these variables
Summary
Substance abuse and dependence are major problems at both the individual and the societal level. Attentional bias toward general cues of reward should increase the likelihood of drug cues attracting attention (given their status as cues of reward). People who respond strongly to general reward cues might be more willing to try and use more substances, than those who are less attentive to cues of reward. Support for this idea is found in previous studies that have demonstrated that attentional biases for general reward cues are positively related to alcohol use in students [11], and to substance use in (young) adolescents [12]
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