Interactions between methodological and interindividual variability: How Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task contrast maps vary and impact associations with behavior

Abstract

Introduction Phenomena related to reward responsiveness have been extensively studied in their associations with substance use and socioemotional functioning. One important task in this literature is the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. By cueing and delivering performance‐contingent reward, the MID task has been demonstrated to elicit robust activation of neural circuits involved in different phases of reward responsiveness. However, systematic evaluations of common MID task contrasts have been limited to between‐study comparisons of group‐level activation maps, limiting their ability to directly evaluate how researchers’ choice of contrasts impacts conclusions about individual differences in reward responsiveness or brain‐behavior associations. Methods In a sample of 104 participants (Age Mean = 19.3, SD = 1.3), we evaluate similarities and differences between contrasts in: group‐ and individual‐level activation maps using Jaccard's similarity index, region of interest (ROI) mean signal intensities using Pearson's r, and associations between ROI mean signal intensity and psychological measures using Bayesian correlation. Results Our findings demonstrate more similarities than differences between win and loss cues during the anticipation contrast, dissimilarity between some win anticipation contrasts, an apparent deactivation effect in the outcome phase, likely stemming from the blood oxygen level‐dependent undershoot, and behavioral associations that are less robust than previously reported. Conclusion Consistent with recent empirical findings, this work has practical implications for helping researchers interpret prior MID studies and make more informed a priori decisions about how their contrast choices may modify results.

Impact of year-long cannabis use for medical symptoms on brain activation during cognitive processes

“…28,29,32,50,51 Activations to the feedback contrasts were also in line with what has been observed in the past, though the literature is less consistent in regards to the feedback contrast. 29,50,51 Of note, only two of the MID contrasts reached statistical significance. This suggests that the response to the task was more heterogeneous in this participant sample, and perhaps a larger sample or a differently designed reward task would have been needed to achieve more robust activation.…”

Neural heterogeneity underlying late adolescent motivational processing is linked to individual differences in behavioral sensation seeking

“…An important consideration in study is that participants were in a presumed general motivational state during the MID task, in which neural mechanisms involved in the processing of both gains and losses were consistently engaged, with potentially overlapping neural perturbations. Our reported estimates of directed functional connectivity during the MID task is therefore distinct from the field's common focus on average contrasts of anticipatory or outcome reward cues or the comparison of neural activation during gain versus loss trials (Demidenko et al, 2021;Dugré et al, 2018;Oldham et al, 2018).…”

Sex Moderates Reward- and Loss-Related Neural Correlates of Triarchic-Model Traits and Antisocial Behavior

“…Previous studies have found ASPD symptoms to be associated with increased reactivity in the ventral striatum during reward anticipation (Bjork et al, 2012;Buckholtz et al, 2010;Geurts et al, 2016), whereas in the current study, this effect was not replicated. However, because these previous studies used small samples (n range = 24-34), such associations may have been spurious (Demidenko et al, 2021). This is the first study to examine associations between triarchic-model scales and neural activation in the MID task, and thus, analyses were exploratory.…”