News Release

Cocaine users make riskier decisions after losing a gamble

Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Elsevier

Philadelphia, PA, January 10, 2017 - People addicted to cocaine make riskier decisions than healthy people after losing a potential reward, according to a study published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. In the study, senior author Martin Paulus of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and colleagues show that this heightened sensitivity to loss displayed by the cocaine users correlated with an exaggerated decrease in a part of the brain that processes rewards.

The results suggest that altered neural processing of risk and reward drives people with cocaine use disorder to take further risks to regain a lost reward, helping researchers to understand why cocaine users tend to make risky decisions despite the potential negative outcomes.

"This paradoxical relationship between how someone acts in response to a loss can give us clues for how to develop better interventions and how to track the recovery of the brain from cocaine addiction," said first author Joshua Gowin, of the University of California San Diego, where the research was completed, and of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland.

In the study, 29 participants diagnosed with cocaine use disorder and 40 healthy control participants performed a Risky Gains Task, in which they could earn money by choosing between three monetary values - the lowest value being the safest option and higher values being riskier. Dr. Gowin and colleagues assessed differences in behavior and neuroimaging between the groups.

As the potential monetary value increased, the control group showed a proportional increase in activity of the ventral striatum, a brain region important for processing reward, which was not observed in the cocaine use disorder group. According to the authors, this suggests that riskier behavior in people with cocaine use disorder is not motivated by reward.

"In an interesting parallel to their real life behavior, brain activity and choice behavior during a gambling task used in this study indicate an aberrant sensitivity to loss and a tendency to double down and make risky choices," said Cameron Carter, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. The two groups made risky decisions at a similar frequency overall, but the effect was only observed after participants had lost a gamble in a previous round.

Additionally, the study showed that lifetime cocaine use correlates with activity of the anterior cingulate cortex during a risky decision, which suggests a direct relationship between neural processing of risk and substance use.

Because the data for the study were collected at a single time point after people had already developed cocaine use disorder, it remains unknown if the differences found in the study preceded cocaine use or were caused by it. Future studies that follow people at high risk for the disorder over time can help provide an answer to this question.

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Notes for editors

The article is "Doubling Down: Increased Risk-Taking Behavior Following a Loss by Individuals With Cocaine Use Disorder Is Associated With Striatal and Anterior Cingulate Dysfunction," by Joshua L. Gowin, April C. May, Marc Wittmann, Susan F. Tapert, and Martin P. Paulus (doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.02.002). It appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, volume 2, issue 1 (2017), published by Elsevier.

Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or BPCNNI@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Joshua Gowin, Ph.D., at joshua.gowin@nih.gov.

The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

Cameron S. Carter, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging is an official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal focuses on studies using the tools and constructs of cognitive neuroscience, including the full range of non-invasive neuroimaging and human extra- and intracranial physiological recording methodologies. It publishes both basic and clinical studies, including those that incorporate genetic data, pharmacological challenges, and computational modeling approaches.

About Elsevier

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Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno
Editorial Office, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
+1 214 648 0880
BPCNNI@utsouthwestern.edu


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