Abstract
Background
Cocaine use disorders (CUDs) have been associated with increased risk-taking behavior.
Neuroimaging studies have suggested that altered activity in reward and decision-making
circuitry may underlie cocaine users’ heightened risk-taking. It remains unclear if
this behavior is driven by greater reward salience, lack of appreciation of danger,
or another deficit in risk-related processing.
Methods
Twenty-nine CUD participants and 40 healthy comparison participants completed the
Risky Gains Task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. During the Risky
Gains Task, participants choose between a safe option for a small, guaranteed monetary
reward and risky options with larger rewards but also the chance to lose money. Frequency
of risky choice overall and following a win versus a loss were compared. Neural activity
during the decision and outcome phases was examined using linear mixed effects models.
Results
Although the groups did not differ in overall risk-taking frequency, the CUD group
chose a risky option more often following a loss. Neuroimaging analyses revealed that
the comparison group showed increasing activity in the bilateral ventral striatum
as they chose higher value, risky options, but the CUD group failed to show this increase.
During the outcome phase, the CUD group showed a greater decrease in bilateral striatal
activity relative to the comparison group when losing the large amount, and this response
was correlated with risk-taking frequency after a loss.
Conclusions
The brains of CUD individuals are hypersensitive to losses, leading to increased risk-taking
behaviors, and this may help explain why these individuals take drugs despite aversive
outcomes.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and NeuroimagingAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Acute cardiac events temporally related to cocaine abuse.N Engl J Med. 1986; 315: 1438-1443
- African-American women who smoke crack cocaine: Sexual trauma and the mother-daughter relationship.J Psychoactive Drugs. 1994; 26: 243-247
- Europol–EMCDDA Joint Report on a new psychoactive substance: 4-methylmethcathinone (mephedrone).European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, Portugal2010
- Probability and predictors of transition from first use to dependence on nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine: Results of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC).Drug Alcohol Depend. 2011; 115: 120-130
- Abnormal structure of frontostriatal brain systems is associated with aspects of impulsivity and compulsivity in cocaine dependence.Brain. 2011; 134: 2013-2024
- Impulsivity as a vulnerability marker for substance-use disorders: Review of findings from high-risk research, problem gamblers and genetic association studies.Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2008; 32: 777-810
- Decision-making and addiction (part I): Impaired activation of somatic states in substance dependent individuals when pondering decisions with negative future consequences.Neuropsychologia. 2002; 40: 1675-1689
- Orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction in abstinent cocaine abusers performing a decision-making task.Neuroimage. 2003; 19: 1085-1094
- Adolescent risk-taking as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure and biological sex.Neurotoxicol Teratol. 2014; 41: 65-70
- Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk.Econometrica. 1979; 47: 263-291
- Altered risk-related processing in substance users: Imbalance of pain and gain.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2013; 132: 13-21
- Reward sensitivity, decisional bias, and metacognitive deficits in cocaine drug addiction.J Addict Med. 2014; 8: 399-406
- The differential relationship between cocaine use and marijuana use on decision-making performance over repeat testing with the Iowa Gambling Task.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007; 90: 2-11
- Drug abusers show impaired performance in a laboratory test of decision making.Neuropsychologia. 2000; 38: 1180-1187
- Preliminary evidence for normalization of risk taking by modafinil in chronic cocaine users.Addict Behav. 2014; 39: 1057-1061
- Construct validity of the Iowa Gambling Task.Neuropsychol Rev. 2009; 19: 102-114
- Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).J Exp Psychol Appl. 2002; 8: 75-84
- Dissociable deficits in the decision-making cognition of chronic amphetamine abusers, opiate abusers, patients with focal damage to prefrontal cortex, and tryptophan-depleted normal volunteers: Evidence for monoaminergic mechanisms.Neuropsychopharmacology. 1999; 20: 322-339
- Prefrontal cortex activity is reduced in gambling and nongambling substance users during decision-making.Hum Brain Mapp. 2007; 28: 1276-1286
- Reduced posterior mesofrontal cortex activation by risky rewards in substance-dependent patients.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2008; 95: 115-128
- Increased activation in the right insula during risk-taking decision making is related to harm avoidance and neuroticism.Neuroimage. 2003; 19: 1439-1448
- Lorazepam dose-dependently decreases risk-taking related activation in limbic areas.Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2006; 189: 105-116
- Increased risk-taking decision-making but not altered response to punishment in stimulant-using young adults.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2005; 78: 83-90
- Attenuated insular processing during risk predicts relapse in early abstinent methamphetamine-dependent individuals.Neuropsychopharmacology. 2014; 39: 1379-1387
- Altered cingulate and insular cortex activation during risk-taking in methamphetamine dependence: Losses lose impact.Addiction. 2014; 109: 237-247
- A validity study of the SSAGA--a comparison with the SCAN.Addiction. 1999; 94: 1361-1370
- American Adult Reading Test: Age norms, reliability, and validity.J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 24. ), North2002: 1123-1137
- Wechsler Test of Adult Reading.Pearson Psychological Corporation., San Antonio, TX2001
- AFNI: Software for analysis and visualization of functional magnetic resonance neuroimages.Comput Biomed Res. 1996; 29: 162-173
- Automated Talairach atlas labels for functional brain mapping.Hum Brain Mapp. 2000; 10: 120-131
- Robust estimation of a location parameter.Ann Math Stat. 1964; 35: 73-101
- The differential relationship between cocaine use and marijuana use on decision-making performance over repeat testing with the Iowa Gambling Task.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007; 90: 2-11
- Subjective sensitivity to monetary gradients is associated with frontolimbic activation to reward in cocaine abusers.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007; 87: 233-240
- Belief in the law of small numbers.Psychol Bull. 1971; 76: 105
- A comparison of patterns of methamphetamine and cocaine use.J Addict Dis. 2001; 21: 35-44
- Predictive reward signal of dopamine neurons.J Neurophysiol. 1998; 80: 1-27
- The role of nucleus accumbens dopamine in motivated behavior: A unifying interpretation with special reference to reward-seeking.Brain Res Rev. 1999; 31: 6-41
- Anticipation of increasing monetary reward selectively recruits nucleus accumbens.J Neurosci. 2001; 21: RC159
- A neural substrate of prediction and reward.Science. 1997; 275: 1593-1599
- Risk prediction and aversion by anterior cingulate cortex.Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2007; 7: 266-277
- The integration of negative affect, pain and cognitive control in the cingulate cortex.Nat Rev Neurosci. 2011; 12: 154-167
- Individualized relapse prediction: Personality measures and striatal and insular activity during reward-processing robustly predict relapse.Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015; 152: 93-101
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 24, 2016
Accepted:
February 2,
2016
Received in revised form:
February 2,
2016
Received:
October 1,
2015
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Society of Biological Psychiatry.
