Abstract
Rationale: Both attention deficit-/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are accompanied by deficits in response inhibition. Furthermore, the prevalence of comorbidity of ADHD and AUD is high. However, there is a lack of research on whether the same neuronal subprocesses of inhibition (i.e., interference inhibition, action withholding and action cancellation) exhibit deficits in both psychiatric disorders.Methods: We examined these three neural subprocesses of response inhibition in patient groups and healthy controls: non-medicated individuals with ADHD (ADHD; N = 16), recently detoxified and abstinent individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD; N = 15), and healthy controls (HC; N = 15). A hybrid response inhibition task covering interference inhibition, action withholding, and action cancellation was applied using a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).Results: Individuals with ADHD showed an overall stronger hypoactivation in attention related brain areas compared to AUD or HC during action withholding. Further, this hypoactivation was more accentuated during action cancellation. Individuals with AUD recruited a broader network, including the striatum, compared to HC during action withholding. During action cancellation, however, they showed hypoactivation in motor regions. Additionally, specific neural activation profiles regarding group and subprocess became apparent.Conclusions: Even though deficits in response inhibition are related to both ADHD and AUD, neural activation and recruited networks during response inhibition differ regarding both neuronal subprocesses and examined groups. While a replication of this study is needed in a larger sample, the results suggest that tasks have to be carefully selected when examining neural activation patterns of response inhibition either in research on various psychiatric disorders or transdiagnostic questions.
Highlights
Have you ever been drinking more than intended, or answered hastily to a question without listening until the end? Impulsivity can be seen as a failure to withhold or stop a response while being aware of negative consequences [1, 2]
The current study aims to identify differences in clinical populations (ADHD and alcohol use disorder (AUD)) and compared to healthy controls (HC) regarding task-related neural activation during three subcomponents of response inhibition using the hybrid response inhibition (HRI) task
N = 46 individuals were included in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis, consisting of 15 AUD, 16 attention deficit-/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 15 HC
Summary
Have you ever been drinking more than intended, or answered hastily to a question without listening until the end? Impulsivity can be seen as a failure to withhold or stop a response while being aware of negative consequences [1, 2]. Children with ADHD have a significantly higher risk of developing an SUD [14], so do adolescents [15]. Failure in response inhibition is considered as one of the underlying mechanisms in both ADHD and AUD [19,20,21,22], possibly being a link between both disorders [23]. An increased risk for binge drinking in adolescence due to ADHD collides with critical phases regarding brain maturation. This aggravates impairments in response inhibition and increases, in turn, the risk for further binge drinking episodes and possibly a subsequent SUD [27]
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