In three experiments, match-to-sample procedures were used with undergraduates to establish arbitrary relational functions for three abstract visual stimuli. In the presence of samples A, B, and C, participants were trained to select the smallest, middle, and largest member, respectively, of a series of three-comparison arrays. In Experiment 1, the B (choose middle) stimulus was then used to train a steady rate of keyboard pressing before the A (choose smallest) and the C (choose largest) stimuli were presented. Participants pressed slower to A and faster to C than to B. Then B was paired with mild shock in a Pavlovian procedure with skin conductance change as the dependent variable. When presented with A and C, 6 of 8 experimental participants showed smaller skin conductance changes to A and larger skin conductance changes to C than to B. In Experiment 2, A was then used as a sample in a match-to-sample procedure to establish an arbitrary size ranking among four same-sized colored circle comparisons. One of the middle circles was then used to establish a steady rate of pressing before the other circles were presented. Five of 6 participants responded slower to the "smaller" circle and faster to the "larger" circle than they did to the "middle" circle. In Experiment 3, A, B, and C were then presented on a series of test trials requiring participants to pick the comparison that was less than, greater than, or equal to the sample. Novel stimuli were included on some trials. Results indicated that the relational training procedures produced derived relations among the stimuli used in training and that these allowed correct inferences of relative size ranking among novel stimuli.

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Persistent deficits in social behavior are among the major negative consequences associated with exposure to ethanol during prenatal development. Prior work from our laboratory has linked deficits in social behavior following moderate prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) in the rat to functional alterations in the ventrolateral frontal cortex [21]. In addition to social behaviors, the regions comprising the ventrolateral frontal cortex are critical for diverse processes ranging from orofacial motor movements to flexible alteration of behavior in the face of changing consequences. The broader behavioral implications of altered ventrolateral frontal cortex function following moderate PAE have, however, not been examined. In the present study we evaluated the consequences of moderate PAE on social behavior, tongue protrusion, and flexibility in a variant of the Morris water task that required modification of a well-established spatial response. PAE rats displayed deficits in tongue protrusion, reduced flexibility in the spatial domain, increased wrestling, and decreased investigation, indicating that several behaviors associated with ventrolateral frontal cortex function are impaired following moderate PAE. A linear discriminant analysis revealed that measures of wrestling and tongue protrusion provided the best discrimination of PAE rats from saccharin-exposed control rats. We also evaluated all behaviors in young adult (4-5 mos.) or older (10-11 mos.) rats to address the persistence of behavioral deficits in adulthood and possible interactions between early ethanol exposure and advancing age. Behavioral deficits in each domain persisted well into adulthood (10-11 mos.), however, there was no evidence that age enhances the effects of moderate PAE within the age ranges that were studied.

Background US nationwide estimates indicate 50–80% of prisoners have a history of substance abuse or dependence. Tailoring substance abuse treatment to specific needs of incarcerated individuals could improve effectiveness of treating substance dependence and preventing drug abuse relapse. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that pre-treatment neural measures of a Go/NoGo task would predict which individuals would or would not complete a 12-week cognitive behavioral substance abuse treatment program. Methods Adult incarcerated participants (N=89; Females=55) who volunteered for substance abuse treatment performed a response inhibition (Go/NoGo) task while event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded. Stimulus- and response-locked ERPs were compared between individuals who completed (N=68; Females=45) and discontinued (N=21; Females=10) treatment. Results As predicted, stimulus-locked P2, response-locked error-related negativity (ERN/Ne), and response-locked error positivity (Pe), measured with windowed time-domain and principal component analysis, differed between groups. Using logistic regression and support-vector machine (i.e., pattern classifiers) models, P2 and Pe predicted treatment completion above and beyond other measures (i.e., N2, P300, ERN/Ne, age, sex, IQ, impulsivity, and self-reported depression, anxiety, motivation for change, and years of drug abuse). Conclusions We conclude individuals who discontinue treatment exhibited deficiencies in sensory gating, as indexed by smaller P2, error-monitoring, as indexed by smaller ERN/Ne, and adjusting response strategy post-error, as indexed by larger Pe. However, the combination of P2 and Pe reliably predicted 83.33% of individuals who discontinued treatment. These results may help in the development of individualized therapies, which could lead to more favorable, long-term outcomes.

Analyses of convergent validity and group assignment using self-report, caregiver-report and interview-based measures of adolescent psychopathy were conducted in a sample of 160 incarcerated adolescents. Results reveal significant convergent validity between caregiver-report measures of adolescent psychopathy, significant convergent validity between self-report measures of adolescent psychopathy and an interviewer rating scale, but not between the caregiver-report measures and their corresponding self-report measures nor between the caregiver-report measures and the interviewer rating scale. Analyses of group assignment were also poorer than expected among all the measures with none evidencing significant agreement with the expert-rated device (Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version; PCL-YV), the most common forensic instrument used in clinical practice. Part of the poor agreement may be related to the poor psychometric performance of the callous-unemotional subscale of most of these measures and the low response rates from caregivers (N=35). These findings suggest that the measures do not provide an interchangeable assessment of callous-unemotional traits and suggest that further refinement of the measurement of callous-unemotional traits in youth may be warranted.