Abstract
Background
Substance use (SU) typically increases from middle to late adolescence. Anxiety is
one factor associated with greater SU, although variability in who uses substances
remains. Some models suggest that brain-based susceptibility markers could reveal
which adolescents are at a higher risk for psychopathology, but it is unknown whether
these individual differences attenuate or accentuate the association between anxiety
and elevated SU even if normative. This study addressed this gap by testing whether
neural response to social exclusion moderates the association between anxiety symptoms
and increased SU from middle to late adolescence.
Methods
Participants were 181 Mexican-origin adolescents (48% female; 16–17 years old) who
completed a social exclusion task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan
and filled out questionnaires about their SU and anxiety symptoms. Analyses focused
on neural response to social exclusion versus inclusion within 3 regions of interest
and change in SU across 2 years.
Results
Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex response to social exclusion, but not subgenual anterior
cingulate cortex or anterior insula, moderated the relation between anxiety symptoms
and SU, such that higher anxiety symptoms predicted a greater relative increase in
SU only for those youth with a lower dorsal anterior cingulate cortex response to
exclusion.
Conclusions
Blunted dorsal anterior cingulate cortex response to social exclusion may serve as
a neural susceptibility marker of altered conflict monitoring or emotion regulation
in middle adolescence that, in combination with high levels of anxious feelings, elevates
the risk for onset of and/or increased SU by late adolescence. These findings have
implications for designing targeted interventions to mitigate SU among adolescents.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 17, 2021
Accepted:
June 8,
2021
Received in revised form:
May 31,
2021
Received:
March 24,
2021
Identification
Copyright
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