Cue-elicited increases in incentive salience for marijuana: Craving, demand, and attentional bias

Abstract

Background Incentive salience is a multidimensional construct that includes craving, drug value relative to other reinforcers, and implicit motivation such as attentional bias to drug cues. Laboratory cue reactivity (CR) paradigms have been used to evaluate marijuana incentive salience with measures of craving, but not with behavioral economic measures of marijuana demand or implicit attentional processing tasks. Methods This within-subjects study used a new CR paradigm to examine multiple dimensions of marijuana’s incentive salience and to compare CR-induced increases in craving and demand. Frequent marijuana users (N=93, 34% female) underwent exposure to neutral cues then to lit marijuana cigarettes. Craving, marijuana demand via a marijuana purchase task, and heart rate were assessed after each cue set. A modified Stroop task with cannabis and control words was completed after the marijuana cues as a measure of attentional bias. Results Relative to neutral cues, marijuana cues significantly increased subjective craving and demand indices of intensity (i.e., drug consumed at $0) and Omax (i.e., peak drug expenditure). Elasticity significantly decreased following marijuana cues, reflecting sustained purchase despite price increases. Craving was correlated with demand indices (r’s: 0.23–0.30). Marijuana users displayed significant attentional bias for cannabis-related words after marijuana cues. Cue-elicited increases in intensity were associated with greater attentional bias for marijuana words. Conclusions Greater incentive salience indexed by subjective, behavioral economic, and implicit measures was observed after marijuana versus neutral cues, supporting multidimensional assessment. The study highlights the utility of a behavioral economic approach in detecting cue-elicited changes in marijuana incentive salience.

Interrelationships between marijuana demand and discounting of delayed rewards: Convergence in behavioral economic methods

“…Data were obtained from participants who completed an experimental study investigating variability in marijuana's acute and cue-elicited effects (Metrik et al, 2016). Participants were 88 non-treatment seeking frequent marijuana users recruited through newspaper advertisements, flyers, and social media websites who met the following inclusion criteria: native English speakers, 18–44 years of age, non-Hispanic Caucasian (due to genetic aims of the parent study), marijuana use at least 2 days per week in the past month and at least weekly in the past 6 months, and self-reported ability to abstain from marijuana for 24 hours without withdrawal.…”

“…Full details of procedures used in the current study have been previously described (Metrik et al, 2016), however, pertinent procedural details are included here. All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Brown University.…”

“…For example, indices of tobacco cigarette demand have been linked with increased nicotine dependence (Chase et al, 2013; MacKillop et al, 2008; Murphy et al, 2011), and alcohol demand metrics have been significantly related to alcohol problem severity and level of alcohol consumption (MacKillop et al, 2010; Murphy et al, 2009; Murphy and MacKillop, 2006). Furthermore, indices of marijuana demand have been related to cannabis dependence (CD) symptom count and self-reported marijuana craving (Aston et al, 2015), as well as level of use (Aston et al, 2015; Collins et al, 2014) and cue-elicited craving (Metrik et al, 2016). …”

Latent factor structure of a behavioral economic marijuana demand curve

“…Substance demand indices derived from purchase tasks for general preferences are related to frequency of substance use and dependence symptoms (MacKillop et al 2010a; Aston et al 2015; MacKillop et al 2016) and are predictive of therapeutic treatment response (MacKillop and Murphy 2007; Murphy et al 2015; MacKillop et al 2016). State-orientated purchase tasks have been found to complement other state measures of acute motivation (MacKillop et al 2010b; Acker and MacKillop 2013; Metrik et al 2016). …”

Further examination of the temporal stability of alcohol demand

“…Consequently, researchers have developed hypothetical purchase tasks (HPTs) to assess reported demand for alcohol (Mackillop et al, 2010a; Murphy and MacKillop, 2006; Skidmore and Murphy, 2011), marijuana (Aston et al, 2016, 2015; Collins et al, 2014; Metrik et al, 2016), cigarettes (Field et al, 2006; Mackillop et al, 2012b; MacKillop and Tidey, 2011), prescription drugs (Pickover et al, 2016), and other illicit drugs (Jacobs and Bickel, 1999) in situations where it would be impractical to estimate demand based on actual laboratory drug consumption/purchases. Individuals are asked how much of a given substance they would purchase and consume across a series of escalating prices, and consumption is plotted as a function of price to create a demand curve.…”