Impaired social decision‐making in males with methamphetamine use disorder

Abstract

Individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) commonly exhibit socially problematic behaviours. Investigating the prosocial decision‐making of individuals with MUD could enable a better understanding of their impaired social functioning and help improve their social relationships. We conducted two studies to examine the performance of individuals with MUD and healthy controls on a modified dictator game. In Study 1, 55 male individuals with MUD and 34 healthy male participants made a series of choices between two pairs of monetary prizes for themselves and for others. In Study 2, 62 male individuals with MUD and 31 healthy male participants made the same choices as in Study 1 after a brief exposure to methamphetamine‐related pictures. In both studies, we consistently found a context dependency of decreased prosociality in individuals with MUD. That is, individuals with MUD made fewer prosocial choices than healthy individuals in disadvantageous contexts (but not advantageous contexts). The results of the computational model suggested that the lower prosociality of individuals with MUD in disadvantageous contexts could be attributed to the lower weight placed on others' benefits. Moreover, when exposed to methamphetamine‐related pictures, individuals with MUD showed less caution and slower encoding/motor speed than healthy individuals, and individuals with MUD with a longer history of methamphetamine use tended to respond less cautiously. Our findings provide evidence that in disadvantageous contexts, individuals with MUD show reduced prosociality and less consideration of others' benefits. Identifying the origin of the alterations in prosocial decision‐making has implications for diagnosis and treatment.

Psychostimulants and social behaviors

“…If the subject chose no money or less money for themselves against the hypothetical strangers, the choice was selected as pro-social. In the disadvantageous context, males with MAMPH use disorder made fewer pro-social choices compared to controls, however, in the advantageous context authors reported no differences in pro-social choices between groups ( Li et al, 2022 ). Although the pro-social decisions could be different if the interaction were face to face, this study suggests that in disadvantageous scenarios MAMPH male users have less consideration of other’s benefits as compared to healthy controls.…”

Losing control without your smartphone: Anxiety affects the dynamic choice process of impulsive decision-making and purchase

“…Nonsmokers had a higher drift rate than smokers in the condition where negative words were associated with smoking ( Gao et al, 2022 ). The DDM model suggests that the lower prosociality of individuals with methamphetamine use disorder could be attributed to the lower weight placed on others’ benefits ( Li et al, 2022 ). However, in other studies, heroin-addicted mothers showed no significant group differences in any parameter of the examined DDM compared to the healthy control group ( Eikemo et al, 2019 ).…”

Decision-making task performance and patterns of methamphetamine use in people assigned male at birth who have sex with men.

“…Research on people with MA use disorder shows decisions made that balance risk and reward in the setting of loss differ from those of healthy control groups (Kohno et al, 2014). More recent work shows lower prosociality and lower consideration of others among people who chronically use MA compared to a healthy control group (Li et al, 2022). Additionally, during decision making, people who use MA occasionally show primary focus on potential gain, whereas people who do not use take into consideration the risk value (Droutman et al, 2019).…”