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Risky decisions triggered positive neural rewards in alcohol-dependent women

A heightened reward sensitivity may be the driving force behind high-risk decisions among alcohol-dependent women, according to researchers at Indiana University.

“Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have found a relationship between alcohol dependence and increased activation with drug-related cues in regions implicated in reward processing and a relationship between cue-induced reward activation and the level of attention directed at drug-related cues,” researcher Lindsay R. Arcurio, and colleagues in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University, wrote.

 

Lindsay R. Arcurio

Researchers noted thatalcohol-dependent women seem to repeatedly and continually seek alcohol despite high risks to their personal safety and that those who depend on alcohol may find themselves at greater risk for being involved in auto accidents or contracting sexually-transmitted infections.

To assess whether alcohol activated an over-sensitive reward system, a deficit in control systems or both among alcohol-dependent women, researchers used fMRI to measure blood oxygen level-dependent signal change in 15 alcohol-dependent and 16 non-alcohol-dependent women.

The setup of the study allowed the researchers to observe specifically that alcohol-dependent women had heightened reward sensitivity to alcohol, as opposed to choices they might make relating to food or non-drinking activity.

Researchers compared the patterns of brain activity in alcohol-dependent women with those of the control group. When faced with high-risk choices that showed a high probability of reward (eg. access to free alcohol), the alcohol-dependent group exhibited greater blood oxygen-level dependent signal activity in the salience network area of the brain.

Researchers sought to differentiate between cues to appetite or environment, as compared with motivational cues strictly related to alcohol, by providing the study participants with photos of and questions about alcoholic drinks, everyday objects and foods. Functional MRI images suggested that more blood oxygen level-dependent signaling in the brain was exclusive to alcohol-dependent women when alcohol was mentioned.

Data from the study also demonstrated increased action in the brain’s central executive network. The researchers noted that this finding suggests that alcohol-dependents exert more effort at cognitive control than the control participants, possibly as a way to override their reward hypersensitivity. This simultaneous activity may suggest that women experience alcohol addiction differently than men.

“We see that the network dynamics of alcohol-dependent women may be really different from that of healthy controls in a drinking-related task,” Arcurio said in a press release. “We have evidence to suggest alcohol-dependent women have trouble switching between networks of the brain.”

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.