Chunk #31 — Risk Factors for AUD from Neuropsychological, Neurophysiological, and Neuroimaging Studies — Dysfunction in Decision Making and Affective Responsivity
Young adults with a family history of AUD have been characterized as having an excessive sensitivity to reward, in that they tend to pay greater attention to monetary gains when making decisions on the Iowa Gambling Test compared with individuals with no family history of alcoholism (Lovallo et al. 2006). A follow-up fMRI study of high risk individuals performing the Iowa Gambling Task has revealed greater activation in the left anterior cingluate gyrus and left caudate in the absence of performance differences on this task (Acheson et al. 2009). Investigating the recruitment of motivational circuitry by monetary rewards using fMRI in adolescents at high and low risk for AUD, Bjork et al. (2008) found BOLD signal did not differ in the ventral striatum, nucleus accumbens, and mesofrontal cortical regions between risk groups. Decisions that led to the loss of rewards, though, evoked more extensive right anterior insula activation in controls compared to adolescents with a family history of SUD.
