We examined neural response to monetary reward in 24 young adults with alcohol dependence and 24 healthy young adults. Using a reliable fMRI task involving guessing numbers and winning money, we predicted that alcohol dependence would be related to hypofrontality, defined as low response in OFC, mPFC, and DLPFC. We also predicted that alcohol dependence would be associated with altered frontostriatal functional connectivity, defined as greater negative correlation in task-related functional connectivity between those PFC regions and the nucleus accumbens. Because we focused on monetary reward, we predicted that alcohol dependence would be associated with low VS response. Finally, to address the possible mechanisms leading to group differences, we examined brain-behavior associations involving drinking characteristics such as frequency and quantity of drinking, number of years drinking, and family history of alcohol dependence. Examining associations of these characteristics with neural response and functional connectivity within the alcohol dependent group provided the opportunity to obtain a more detailed understanding of the process by which frontostriatal function could develop from patterns of drinking behavior or genetic vulnerability (in the case of family history).
