Abstract
Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) tasks examine the influence of Pavlovian stimuli on ongoing instrumental behaviour. Previous studies reported associations between a strong PIT effect, high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder. This study investigated whether susceptibility to interference between Pavlovian and instrumental control is linked to risky alcohol use in a community sample of 18-year-old male adults. Participants (N=191) were instructed to 'collect good shells' and 'leave bad shells' during the presentation of appetitive (monetary reward), aversive (monetary loss) or neutral Pavlovian stimuli. We compared instrumental error rates (ER) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain responses between the congruent and incongruent conditions, as well as among high-risk and low-risk drinking groups. On average, individuals showed a substantial PIT effect, that is, increased ER when Pavlovian cues and instrumental stimuli were in conflict compared with congruent trials. Neural PIT correlates were found in the ventral striatum and the dorsomedial and lateral prefrontal cortices (lPFC). Importantly, high-risk drinking was associated with a stronger behavioural PIT effect, a decreased lPFC response and an increased neural response in the ventral striatum on the trend level. Moreover, high-risk drinkers showed weaker connectivity from the ventral striatum to the lPFC during incongruent trials. Our study links interference during PIT to drinking behaviour in healthy, young adults. High-risk drinkers showed higher susceptibility to Pavlovian cues, especially when they conflicted with instrumental behaviour, indicating lower interference control abilities. Increased activity in the ventral striatum (bottom-up), decreased lPFC response (top-down), and their altered interplay may contribute to poor interference control in the high-risk drinkers.
Highlights
To behave efficiently in one's daily life and to adapt one's actions to a dynamic environment, a response selection system is frequently engaged
We investigated whether interference between Pavlovian and instrumental control, assessed with a Pavlovianto-instrumental transfer (PIT) task, is associated with risky alcohol use in a cohort of healthy males aged 18 years
Participants committed substantially more errors in the incongruent compared with the congruent condition, which suggests that interference by incongruent Pavlovian cues impairs instrumental performance
Summary
To behave efficiently in one's daily life and to adapt one's actions to a dynamic environment, a response selection system is frequently engaged. When whether the Pavlovian cue interferes with the instrumental behaviour was taken into account, alcoholdependent patients committed more errors compared with healthy controls when Pavlovian stimuli and instrumental responses were in conflict, especially when participants needed to inhibit instrumental approach responses during the presence of appetitive Pavlovian cues[15]; this behavioural impairment was stronger for future relapsers.[22] As of yet, whether this interference effect along with its neural correlates was associated with high-risk drinking during young adulthood is not clear. If this were to be the case, we would expect the effective connectivity between the aforementioned brain regions to be altered in the high-risk drinkers, which we would explore with dynamic causal models
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