Impaired decision making on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task as a result of long-term alcohol use

Computational markers of risky decision-making predict for relapse to alcohol

BACKGROUND

Relapse remains the major challenge in treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Aberrant decision-making has been found as important cognitive mechanism underlying relapse, but factors associated with relapse vulnerability are unclear. Here, we aim to identify potential computational markers of relapse vulnerability by investigating risky decision-making in individuals with AUD.

METHODS

Forty-six healthy controls and fifty-two individuals with AUD were recruited for this study. The risk-taking propensity of these subjects was investigated using the balloon analog risk task (BART). After completion of clinical treatment, all individuals with AUD were followed up and divided into a non-relapse AUD group and a relapse AUD group according to their drinking status.

RESULTS

The risk-taking propensity differed significantly among healthy controls, the non-relapse AUD group, and the relapse AUD group, and was negatively associated with the duration of abstinence in individuals with AUD. Logistic regression models showed that risk-taking propensity, as measured by the computational model, was a valid predictor of alcohol relapse, and higher risk-taking propensity was associated with greater risk of relapse to drink.

CONCLUSION

Our study presents new insights into risk-taking measurement and identifies computational markers that provide prospective information for relapse to drink in individuals with AUD.

Impulsivity in adolescent girls diagnosed with trichotillomania: an evaluation of clinical and neuropsychological characteristics

The aim of this study is to compare the clinical and neuropsychological features of impulsivity in adolescent girls with trichotillomania (TTM) and healthy controls, and to assess the relationships between the severity of TTM and the impulsivity/concomitant symptoms of anxiety and depression. The study sample consisted of 43 adolescent girls who were 12 to 18 years old. The Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version DSM-5 (K-SADS-PL) was administered to the adolescents and their parents. All of the participants completed a sociodemographic data form, the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale-Child Version (RCADS-CV), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-Brief (BIS-Brief), and the Massachusetts General Hospital Hairpulling Scale (MGH-HPS). The Eriksen Flanker task, the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT) task, the Go/No-Go task, and the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) were used to assess behavioral impulsivity. The adolescents with TTM reported higher levels of impulsivity and anxiety/depression symptoms than the healthy controls, and they also performed worse on the behavioral tasks. While there were no relationships between clinical and behavioral impulsivity and TTM severity, social anxiety symptoms were the most important predictor of the severity of TTM. It seems important to better understand the role of impulsivity in the onset and persistence of TTM symptoms in adolescents.

The effects of sound in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

In this study, we examined the effects of pairing sounds with positive and negative outcomes in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). A number of published studies using the BART incorporate sounds into the task, where a slot machine or cash register sound is produced when rewards are collected and a popping sound is produced when balloons pop. However, some studies do not use sound, and other studies do not specify whether sound was used. Given that sensory information contributes to the intensity of experiences, it is possible that outcome-related sounds in the BART influence risk-taking behaviors, and inconsistent use of sounds across the many BART variations may affect how results are interpreted. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of sounds paired with outcomes in the BART, and whether the presence or valence of a sound would systematically alter participants' risk-taking. Across two experiments using Bayesian censored regressions, we show that sounds, regardless of the outcomes they were paired with or their valence, did not affect risk-taking in an adult, non-clinical sample. We consider the implications of these results within methodological and theoretical contexts and encourage researchers to continue dissociating the role of auditory stimuli in feedback processing and subsequent responding.

[Features of the reward-based decision-making in patients with alcohol use disorders]

Foreign studies increasingly emphasize the role of reward-based cognitive decision-making and its contribution to alcohol and drug abuse. Unfortunately, such studies are extremely few in Russia. Given the importance of the insufficiency of cognitive functions, primarily the decision-making process based on reward, among the risk factors of addictive pathology, increasing the severity of alcoholism, reducing the effectiveness of its therapy and rehabilitation, research in this direction is extremely relevant. This review summarizes and systematizes current data on the features of the cognitive decision-making process based on reward in patients with alcohol dependence. An analysis of the literature has shown that reward-based decision making is an important component of addictive behavior. Patients with alcohol dependence, as well as people, who abuse alcohol, demonstrate clear impairment of this cognitive function. Thus, the relative value of diagnosing disorders in decision-making in modern psychiatry is beyond doubt. It is recommended to include the above tests in the diagnostic complex of a psychiatrist, along with standard psychometric tools.

Risk-taking in the human brain: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of the balloon analog risk task (BART)

The Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) is increasingly used to assess risk-taking behavior and brain function. However, the brain networks underlying risk-taking during the BART and its reliability remain controversial. Here, we combined the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis with both task-based and task-free functional connectivity (FC) analysis to quantitatively synthesize brain networks involved in risk-taking during the BART, and compared the differences between adults and adolescents studies. Based on 22 pooled publications, the ALE meta-analysis revealed multiple brain regions in the reward network, salience network, and executive control network underlying risk-taking during the BART. Compared with adult risk-taking, adolescent risk-taking showed greater activation in the insula, putamen, and prefrontal regions. The combination of meta-analytic connectivity modeling with task-free FC analysis further confirmed the involvement of the reward, salience, and cognitive control networks in the BART. These findings demonstrate the core brain networks for risk-taking during the BART and support the utility of the BART for future neuroimaging and developmental research.

The Effects of Citalopram and Thalamic Dopamine D2/3 Receptor Availability on Decision-Making and Loss Aversion in Alcohol Dependence

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed for patients who misuse alcohol, especially in the context of comorbid depressive symptoms. Deficits in impulse control and decision-making are linked to routine alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of a single dose of citalopram on measures of impulsivity, decision-making, and/or brain dopamine receptor availability in alcohol-dependent individuals. A double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject, outpatient study was conducted with active alcohol-dependent (DSM-IV-TR criteria) participants (n = 12) and matched healthy controls (n = 13). Serial doses of both citalopram (40 mg) and saline were administered intravenously before laboratory tests of decision-making (Balloon Analogue Risk Task, delay discounting task, and Loss Aversion Gambling Task) and positron emission tomography with [¹⁸F]-fallypride to measure dopamine D_2/3 receptor availability, separated by at least one week. Alcohol-dependent participants demonstrated greater loss aversion than healthy controls, but there were no group differences in risk taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. Citalopram increased delay discounting across groups, with no group difference in the effect. There were no effects of citalopram on risk taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. PET showed a negative correlation between thalamic dopamine D_2/3 receptor availability and loss aversion across groups. The effect of citalopram to decrease the valuation of monetary reward as a function of delay raises the possibility that SSRIs can influence risky decision-making in clinical populations. In addition, these results suggest that altered thalamic dopamine signaling may play an important role in disproportionately valuing losses in patients with Alcohol Use Disorder. This trial is registered under ClinicalTrials.gov registration NCT01657760.

A Bayesian method for measuring risk propensity in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) is widely-used to measure risk propensity in theoretical, clinical, and applied research. In the task, people choose either to pump a balloon to increase its value at the risk of the balloon bursting and losing all value, or to bank the current value of the balloon. Risk propensity is most commonly measured as the average number of pumps on trials for which the balloon does not burst. Burst trials are excluded because they necessarily underestimate the number of pumps people intended to make. However, their exclusion discards relevant information about people's risk propensity. A better measure of risk propensity uses the statistical method of censoring to incorporate all of the trials. We develop a new Bayesian method, based on censoring, for measuring both risk propensity and behavioral consistency in the BART. Through applications to previous data we demonstrate how the method can be extended to consider the correlation of risk propensity with external measures, and to compare differences in risk propensity between groups. We provide implementations of all of these methods in R, MATLAB, and the GUI-based statistical software JASP.

Contextual Factors Affecting Risky Decision Making: The Influence of Music on Task Performance and Perceived Distraction

Previous research has investigated factors that contribute to the development of different risk-taking behaviors, such as can occur on lab-based behavioral risky decision making tasks. On several of the most common tasks, participants must develop an adequate understanding of the relative risks and benefits associated with each decision in order to learn to decide advantageously. However, contextual factors can affect the decision making process and one's ability to weigh the risks and benefits of a decision. The present study investigates the extent to which music may be an additional contextual factor that can disrupt decision making and other executive functions. Across four studies we examine whether having music playing passively in the background or having participants actively listen to music affects performance on measures of risky decision making, working memory, processing speed, and problem solving. Participants reported greater distraction for rock music than classical music in the passive listening studies but did not report any differences in distraction across conditions in the active listening studies. Despite this self-reported increased level of distraction, few significant differences were found in task performance across groups and across studies. The Angling Risk Task (ART) was sensitive to differences in risk by condition, with music leading to greater risk-taking in a passive listening study, but less risk-taking in an active listening study, compared to no music. The extent to which music serves as a contextual factor disrupting performance on measures of risky decision making and other executive functions may depend in part on whether individuals are actively versus passively listening to the music.

Problematic social media use is associated with the evaluation of both risk and ambiguity during decision making

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

People can engage in excessive, maladaptive use of social media platforms. This problematic social media use mirrors substance use disorders with regard to symptoms and certain behavioral situations. For example, individuals with substance use disorders demonstrate aberrations in risk evaluations during decision making, and initial research on problematic social media use has revealed similar findings. However, these results concerning problematic social media use have been clouded by tasks that involve learning and that lack a clear demarcation between risky and ambiguous decision making. Therefore, we set out to specifically determine the relationship between problematic social media use and decision making under both risk and ambiguity, in the absence of learning.

METHODS

We assessed each participant's (N = 90) self-reported level of problematic social media use. We then had them perform the wheel of fortune task, which has participants make choices between a sure option or either a risky or ambiguous gamble. In this way, the task isolates decisions made under risk and ambiguity, and avoids trial-to-trial learning. Results: We found that the greater an individual's problematic social media use, the more often that individual choses high-risk gambles or ambiguous gambles, regardless of the degree of ambiguity.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Our findings indicate that greater problematic social media use is related to a greater affinity for high-risk situations and overall ambiguity. These findings have implications for the field, specifically clarifying and extending the extant literature, as well as providing future avenues for research.

Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation influences risk-taking behaviour

Risk-taking behaviour is an essential aspect of our interactions with the environment. Here we investigated whether vestibular inputs influence behavioural measurement of risk-taking propensity. We have combined bipolar Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) with a well-known and established risk-taking behaviour task, namely the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). A sham stimulation was used to control for non-specific effects. Left-anodal and right-cathodal GVS (L-GVS), which preferentially activates the vestibular projections in the right hemisphere, decreased the willingness to take risk during the BART compared with right-anodal and left-cathodal GVS (R-GVS), which activates the left hemisphere. This proved a specific vestibular effect which depends on GVS polarity. Conversely, no generic vestibular effect, defined as the adjusted average of L-GVS and R-GVS conditions compared to sham, emerged, excluding non-specific vestibular effects. Our results confirmed recent findings of a vestibular contribution to decision-making and strategy control behaviour. We suggest that the vestibular-mediated balancing of risk seeking behaviour is an important element of the brain's capacity to adapt to the environment.

Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy and Biejia-Ruangan Are Associated with First Hospital Readmission in Nonalcoholic Cirrhosis Patients

Introductionand Aim. Patients with cirrhosis are often hospitalized repeatedly for a variety of complications. This retrospective study aimed to assess the effects of minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) and Biejia-Ruangan (BR) on first hospital readmission in nonalcoholic cirrhosis patients without previous overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE) or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Materials and Methods. A total of 176 hospitalized patients with nonalcoholic cirrhosis were included in this retrospective study. Patients who were first admitted to Beijing Ditan Hospital of Capital Medical University from January 2017 to September 2019 were enrolled. The primary endpoint was their first liver-related hospital readmission. The risk factors for readmission were analyzed by Cox proportional hazard regression analysis. Results. A total of 176 nonalcoholic cirrhosis patients without previous OHE or HCC were included; 57 patients (32.4%) were diagnosed with MHE, and 63 patients (35.8%) were administered BR (2 g, three times a day). Multivariate analysis revealed that nonalcoholic cirrhosis patients with MHE (HR, 5.805; 95% CI, 3.007-11.206; x, P < 0.001) and a higher Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score (HR, 1.145; 95% CI, 1.068-1.227; P < 0.001) had an increased risk of first hospital readmission, and patients treated with BR (HR, 0.318; 95% CI, 0.151-0.670; P=0.003) had a decreased risk of first hospital readmission. Conclusion. MHE increased the risk of hospital readmission in nonalcoholic cirrhosis patients without previous OHE or HCC, and this risk was decreased by BR administration.

Adaptation to recent outcomes attenuates the lasting effect of initial experience on risky decisions

Both primarily and recently encountered information have been shown to influence experience-based risky decision making. The primacy effect predicts that initial experience will influence later choices even if outcome probabilities change and reward is ultimately more or less sparse than primarily experienced. However, it has not been investigated whether extended initial experience would induce a more profound primacy effect upon risky choices than brief experience. Therefore, the present study tested in two experiments whether young adults adjusted their risk-taking behavior in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task after an unsignaled and unexpected change point. The change point separated early "good luck" or "bad luck" trials from subsequent ones. While mostly positive (more reward) or mostly negative (no reward) events characterized the early trials, subsequent trials were unbiased. In Experiment 1, the change point occurred after one-sixth or one-third of the trials (brief vs. extended experience) without intermittence, whereas in Experiment 2, it occurred between separate task phases. In Experiment 1, if negative events characterized the early trials, after the change point, risk-taking behavior increased as compared with the early trials. Conversely, if positive events characterized the early trials, risk-taking behavior decreased after the change point. Although the adjustment of risk-taking behavior occurred due to integrating recent experiences, the impact of initial experience was simultaneously observed. The length of initial experience did not reliably influence the adjustment of behavior. In Experiment 2, participants became more prone to take risks as the task progressed, indicating that the impact of initial experience could be overcome. Altogether, we suggest that initial beliefs about outcome probabilities can be updated by recent experiences to adapt to the continuously changing decision environment.

Boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making, not risk-taking

Previous research shows that individuals who tend to get bored frequently and intensely—the highly boredom prone—are more likely to engage in risky behaviors. However, these studies are based largely on self-reports. Here we address this gap and suggest that noisy decision-making (DM) is a potential driver for this relationship between boredom proneness and risk-taking. In Study 1, eighty-six participants completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) while EEG was recorded. We found blunted feedback processing with higher boredom proneness, as indexed by reduced feedback-P3 amplitudes. Risk taking, as indexed by the BART, was not higher in the highly boredom prone. In Study 2a (N = 404) we directly tested the noisy DM hypothesis in an online sample using a binary choice task, and found that with higher boredom proneness, participants were more likely to alternate between choices on a trial-to-trial basis, but were not more likely to choose the risky alternative. These findings were replicated in a new sample (Study 2b), and extended to the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Study 3). In the IGT we found increased choice switching and reduced feedback sensitivity with higher boredom proneness. Once again, higher risk taking as indexed by the IGT was not evident in the highly boredom prone. Overall, our findings suggest that boredom proneness is associated with noisy decision-making (i.e., a tendency to alternate more between choice options regardless of risk level), and not risk-seeking per se. That is, the highly boredom prone are not necessarily attracted to risks, but rather, may be insensitive to risks due to reduced feedback sensitivity.

A Systematic Review of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in Alcohol Research

Risk-taking propensity has been crucial to the investigation of alcohol use and consequences. One measure, the balloon analogue risk task (BART), has been used consistently over the past two decades. However, it is unclear how this measure is related to alcohol outcomes. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the BART and alcohol outcomes. First, direct associations between the BART and alcohol use are reviewed including correlations, group comparisons, the BART's prediction of alcohol outcomes and BART performance after consuming alcohol. Then, potential moderators that explain when and for whom the BART is related to alcohol outcomes are reviewed. Finally, potential mechanisms that explain how the BART and alcohol outcomes are related are reviewed. This review reveals patterns in the BART suggesting risk-taking propensity may be related to changes in alcohol use over time; however, there is little evidence to suggest BART scores increase after consuming alcohol. Yet, additional research suggests adjusted average pump scores may be too simplistic for the amount of information the BART captures and understanding individual's patterns of responses on the BART is important for investigating its relation to alcohol outcomes. Finally, this review opens up several future directions for research to understand how risk-taking propensity is related to alcohol outcomes.

Diminished cortical response to risk and loss during risky decision making in alcohol use disorder

BACKGROUND

Risky decision-making is an important facet of addiction. Individuals with alcohol dependence show abnormalities in gambling and other risk-taking tasks. In one such measure, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), participants sequentially choose to pump a virtual balloon to increase potential reward while the risk of explosion increases, or to cash-out and take earnings. In a prior study, alcohol-dependent participants differed from controls in brain activation during decision-making on the BART, but the relationship between risk/reward magnitude and brain activation was not studied, nor were participants compared to controls. Here we compared the degree to which risk and magnitude of reward influenced brain activation in alcohol-dependent participants vs. controls during decision-making on the BART.

METHODS

Thirty-two participants (16 alcohol-dependent, 16 control; 5 females/group) performed the BART during fMRI. A parametric analysis tested for a relationship between risk/reward magnitude and activation in rDLPFC and bilateral striatum regions of interest when participants chose to take risk or to cash out. An exploratory whole-brain voxel-wise analysis of mean activation during pumping, cash-out, and explosion events was also conducted.

RESULTS

Compared with controls, alcohol-dependent participants displayed less modulation of activation in the rDLPFC when taking risk. Exploratory analyses found that alcohol-dependent participants showed less activation than controls during explosions in a cluster including the insula. No differences were seen in striatal activation.

CONCLUSIONS

Insensitivity of the rDLPFC to risk and of the insula to loss may contribute to decision-making deficits in alcohol dependence.

Does Chronic Cannabis Use Impact Risky Decision-Making: An Examination of fMRI Activation and Effective Connectivity?

With the increase in use of cannabis and its shifting legal status in the United States, cannabis use has become an important research focus. While studies of other drug populations have shown marked increases in risky decision-making, the literature on cannabis users is not as clear. The current study examined the performance of 17 cannabis users and 14 non-users on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) using behavioral, fMRI and effective connectivity methods. Significant attenuation was found in a functional pathway projecting from the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in cannabis users compared to non-using controls as well as decreases in risk-taking behaviors. These findings suggest that cannabis users may process and evaluate risks and rewards differently than non-users.

Insensitivity to loss predicts apathy in huntington's disease

BACKGROUND

Apathy is a deficit in goal-directed behavior that significantly affects quality of life and function. It is common in Huntington's disease and other disorders affecting corticostriatal pathways. Deficits in processing of reward, altered effort, and executive dysfunction are associated with apathy in other disorders, but the cognitive processes leading to apathy in Huntington's disease remain largely unknown. A previously reported deficit in learning from losses in Huntington's disease raises the possibility of a hitherto unrecognized mechanism leading to apathy. This study's objective was to delineate the cognitive processes associated with apathy in HD.

METHODS

We tested 51 Huntington's disease participants and 26 controls on a battery of novel and established measures to assess the contribution to apathy in Huntington's disease of executive function, reward value, reward-effort calculations, instrumental learning, and response to reward and loss.

RESULTS

Huntington's disase participants had deficits in instrumental learning with impaired response to loss, but no evidence to suggest altered reward-related behavior or effort. We also saw an executive dysfunction contribution to apathy in Huntington's disease.

DISCUSSION

We report the novel finding that apathy in Huntington's disease is associated with blunted responses to losses and impaired instrumental learning. This association is consistent with the known early degeneration of the indirect pathway and amygdala involvement in apathy in Huntington's disease, but is previously unreported in any disorder. In keeping with the comparative preservation of the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex in Huntington's disease, reward valuation and reward-effort calculations did not contribute to apathy. © 2019 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Individual Differences in Hatching Time Predict Alcohol Response in Zebrafish

There are significant individual differences in response to alcohol: some people seem to exhibit higher alcohol sensitivity, while others are more resistant. These differences are related to alcohol metabolism, inherited traits, environmental/social pressure, personal habits and other indeterminate causes. In order to test how individual differences in hatching time are related to behavioral response to different alcohol concentrations, we separated zebrafish larvae into two categories according to egg emergence time: eggs hatched between 48 and 72 hours post-fertilization (hpf) were considered early emerging (EE), while those hatched from 72 to 96 hpf were considered late emerging (LE). On the 30th day post fertilization, EE and LE fish were exposed to four alcohol concentrations: 0.00% (control), 0.10%, 0.25% and 0.50%, and behavior was recorded for 60 min. We observed average and maximum swimming speed, distance traveled, and freezing time (immobility that indicates state of anxiety). For EE fish, 0.10% alcohol did not change behavior, while 0.25% and 0.50% increased freezing and decreased locomotion. By contrast, LE fish increased locomotion when exposed to both 0.10 and 0.25% alcohol, and increased freezing time at 0.50% alcohol. These results show that zebrafish behavioral profiles exhibit different sensitivities to alcohol, likely due to traits that can be tracked from early life stages and may indicate individuals’ predisposition to alcohol tolerance and dependence.

Let's Open the Decision-Making Umbrella: A Framework for Conceptualizing and Assessing Features of Impaired Decision Making in Addiction

Decision-making impairments play a pivotal role in the emergence and maintenance of addictive disorders. However, a sound conceptualization of decision making as an umbrella construct, encompassing its cognitive, affective, motivational, and physiological subcomponents, is still lacking. This prevents an efficient evaluation of the heterogeneity of decision-making impairments and the development of tailored treatment. This paper thus unfolds the various processes involved in decision making by adopting a critical approach of prominent dual- or triadic-process models, which postulate that decision making is influenced by the interplay of impulsive-automatic, reflective-controlled, and interoceptive processes. Our approach also focuses on social cognition processes, which play a crucial role in decision making and addictive disorders but were largely ignored in previous dual- or triadic-process models. We propose here a theoretical framework in which a range of coordinated processes are first identified on the basis of their theoretical and clinical relevance. Each selected process is then defined before reviewing available results underlining its role in addictive disorders (i.e., substance use, gambling, and gaming disorders). Laboratory tasks for measuring each process are also proposed, initiating a preliminary process-based decision-making assessment battery. This original approach may offer an especially informative view of the constitutive features of decision-making impairments in addiction. As prior research has implicated these features as risk factors for the development and maintenance of addictive disorders, our processual approach sets the scene for novel and transdiagnostic experimental and applied research avenues.

Alcohol use disorder and cognitive impairment in old age patients: A 6 months follow-up study in an outpatient unit in Barcelona

There has been little research about deleterious effects, including cognitive impairment, related to hazardous long-term alcohol use in old adults. This study aims to assess cognitive decline in old patients with alcohol use disorder and changes in cognitive state at 6 months follow-up, achieving or not abstinence. A six-month follow-up study was conducted in an outpatient center in Barcelona on a sample of old adults (≥65 years old) who had hazardous alcohol use. The sample was compared with healthy volunteers adjusted for age, sex and years of education. A neuropsychological protocol was performed at baseline and after 6 months follow-up covering four cognitive domains: attention, visuospatial abilities, memory and executive functions. Several domains were significant impaired at baseline: visual immediate and delayed recall, working memory, immediate verbal learning, total words learned, set switching and sustained attention. At 6 months reassessment, alcohol abstinence was achieved in 93.5% of patients and it was detected a trend towards improvement in direct mean scores of all cognitive areas, although it was not significant. The current study points out a cognitive impairment in many areas secondary to alcohol long-term hazardous use in old adults. A trend towards cognitive improvement after recovery was detected in most patients.

Extending the Balloon Analogue Risk Task to Assess Naturalistic Risk Taking via a Mobile Platform

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) is a behavioral measure that is commonly used to assess risk taking propensity. The primary goal of the present study was to introduce a mobile version of the BART (mBART) that can be included within ambulatory assessment protocols to assess risk taking in daily life. Study 1 compared common BART indices (i.e., total money earned, adjusted average pumps, balloon explosions, and coefficient of variability [CV]) on a single administration of the laboratory BART on a computer and the mBART on a smartphone (n = 78). Results revealed generally consistent relationships between indices of risk taking propensity in both the laboratory BART and mBART. Study 2 administered the mBART as part of a 7-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol in a population of nondaily smokers (n = 51). Using multi-level models, results suggest that males have greater adjusted average pumps (p = .03), and that a participant's average CV is negatively related to trait sensation seeking (p = .03) and positively associated with trait positive urgency (p = .04). There were within-person effects of study day (p = .05) and environment (p = .02) with respect to adjusted average pumps such that individuals took greater risks as the study progressed and were riskier when alone compared to with others. Inclusion of the mBART in EMA did not appear to significantly increase participant burden and demonstrated acceptable levels of compliance. These results offer initial evidence supporting the feasibility and utility of the mBART for ambulatory research designs.

Insensitivity to response-contingent feedback in adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD)

The aim of the study was to investigate the efficiency of the use of response-contingent feedback in adolescents with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) by using the balloon analogue risk task (BART). The BIS/BAS scales were also used to evaluate a participant's responses to reward- or punishment-related events in everyday situations. The results showed that adolescents with DLD performed on the BART at a suboptimal level due to inefficient use of response-contingent feedback. Findings of the BIS/BAS scales also generate a possible hypothesis of reduced motivational salience for larger monetary outcomes in DLD. Given that dopamine plays an important role in modulating BART responding through the corticostriatal pathways, these behavioral findings implicate an association between dopamine and individual differences in language, including DLD. Future studies are needed to directly test whether people with DLD have reduced level of dopamine in striatal neural synapses, leading to dopamine-dependent learning difficulty.

Is decision-making ability related to food choice and facets of eating behaviour in adolescents?

PURPOSE

To test the prediction that poor decision-making would predict poor eating-related behaviours, which in turn would relate to elevated body mass index (BMI) percentile.

METHODS

Associations among decision-making ability, eating behaviours, and BMI percentile were examined in a sample of 311 healthy male and female adolescents, aged 14-18 years. Structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed relationships.

RESULTS

The predicted model was a good fit to the data and all paths between latent and indicator variables were significant. Impulsive responding significantly predicted poor food choice and overeating. No significant relationships emerged between eating-related variables and BMI percentile.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings from this study extend the existing research in adults and offer a more comprehensive understanding of factors that may contribute to eating behaviours and weight status in teenagers.

Effects of mineralocorticoid-receptor stimulation on risk taking behavior in young healthy men and women

Risk taking is influenced by stress, with riskier decisions after exposure to an acute stressor and consecutively elevated cortisol levels. In the brain, cortisol acts on two receptors with different functional profiles: the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). In the current study we investigated the effect of MR stimulation on risk taking behavior in 80 young healthy participants (40 women, mean age=23.9). We administered 0.4mg fludrocortisone, a MR agonist, in a between-subjects, placebo controlled design. Subsequently, participants conducted an established risk taking paradigm, the Balloon-Analogue-Risk-Task (BART). We also used two questionnaires to assess risk taking and decision behavior as trait measures. We found a treatment effect with riskier decisions in the fludrocortisone group. Furthermore, we found a sex effect with more risk taking in men. There was no statistically significant interaction between both factors. Our results indicate that acute MR stimulation leads to riskier decisions in women and men. Our findings argue for an important role of the MR in decision making processes.

Monitoring supports performance in a dual-task paradigm involving a risky decision-making task and a working memory task

Performing two cognitively demanding tasks at the same time is known to decrease performance. The current study investigates the underlying executive functions of a dual-tasking situation involving the simultaneous performance of decision making under explicit risk and a working memory task. It is suggested that making a decision and performing a working memory task at the same time should particularly require monitoring—an executive control process supervising behavior and the state of processing on two tasks. To test the role of a supervisory/monitoring function in such a dual-tasking situation we investigated 122 participants with the Game of Dice Task plus 2-back task (GDT plus 2-back task). This dual task requires participants to make decisions under risk and to perform a 2-back working memory task at the same time. Furthermore, a task measuring a set of several executive functions gathered in the term concept formation (Modified Card Sorting Test, MCST) and the newly developed Balanced Switching Task (BST), measuring monitoring in particular, were used. The results demonstrate that concept formation and monitoring are involved in the simultaneous performance of decision making under risk and a working memory task. In particular, the mediation analysis revealed that BST performance partially mediates the influence of MCST performance on the GDT plus 2-back task. These findings suggest that monitoring is one important subfunction for superior performance in a dual-tasking situation including decision making under risk and a working memory task.

Different strategies underlying uncertain decision making: higher executive performance is associated with enhanced feedback-related negativity

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of executive functions (EFs) in different strategies underlying risky decision making. Adult participants from a nonclinical sample were assigned to low or high EF groups based on their performance on EF tasks measuring shifting, updating, and inhibition. ERPs were recorded while participants performed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). In this task, each balloon pump was associated with either a reward or a balloon pop with unknown probability. The BART behavioral measures did not show between-group differences. However, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) associated with undesirable outcomes was larger in the high EF group than in the low EF group. Since the FRN represents salience prediction error, our results suggest that the high EF group formed internal models that were violated by the outcomes. Thus, we provided ERP evidence for EFs influencing risky decision-making processes.

A dose for the wiser is enough: the alcohol benefits for associative learning in zebrafish

This study aimed to test seeking behavior caused by alcohol and the drug effects on learning in the zebrafish, Danio rerio. Three treatments were conducted: acute, chronic and withdrawal, using 0.10%, 0.25%, and 1.00% alcohol and control (0.00%) (vol/vol.%). For the drug seeking behavior, we used a place preference paradigm (shuttle box tank) before and after alcohol exposure in acute (single exposure) and chronic (7 days) treatments. We observed a change in the basal preference due to the association with alcohol only for 0.25% and 1.00% doses in both acute and chronic offering, indicating an alcohol-seeking behavior after the drug exposure. For the learning task, two treatments were tested: chronic alcohol exposure (26 days including the learning period) and alcohol withdrawal (15 days of alcohol exposure before the learning period). During the learning period, fish received light stimulus followed by food in a pre-defined area of the tank for 8 consecutive days. The low dose group (0.10%) learned the task by the 3rd day both in chronic and withdrawal treatments. The higher doses (0.25% and 1.00%) caused a learning impairment in the chronic treatment group, while fish from the alcohol withdrawal treatment displayed learning on the final testing day. Therefore, we suggest that high alcohol doses impair learning and cause drug seeking behavior, even after drug exposure cessation, while low doses positively affect learning and do not cause seeking behavior. Given our results we propose that the zebrafish is a promising model for identifying active compounds, antibodies or genes which modulate the alcohol dual effects: learning improvement and reinforcing behavior.