Lower Ventral Striatal Activation During Reward Anticipation in Adolescent Smokers

Abstract

The present findings suggest that a lower response to reward anticipation in the ventral striatum may be a vulnerability factor for the development of early nicotine use.

Determinants of Early Alcohol Use In Healthy Adolescents: The Differential Contribution of Neuroimaging and Psychological Factors

“…In addition, the contribution of personality to brain responses was even found to be negative. Although most of the previous research reported positive associations of, for example, impulsive personality with brain activation during reward (eg, Villafuerte et al, 2011), our present findings fit with and extend some studies that, for example, observed a negative association of impulsivity with neural activation during anticipation of reward vs baseline in individuals with an alcoholism family history (eg, Andrews et al, 2011) or during reward vs no reward in adolescent smokers (Peters et al, 2011). In addition, a significantly higher risk for problematic alcohol use in children and adolescents is associated with a parental history of alcoholism (Schuckit and Smith, 1996); however, when only parental alcohol was used, a small nonsignificant contribution to the prediction of early alcohol use was found.…”

“…Specifically, differential activation in reward-associated brain regions may be related to specific factors such as family history of alcohol abuse (eg, Andrews et al, 2011), which might then result in a higher risk for the development of a substance abuse disorder. In addition, this might be different for different substances used, since for example a recent study discussed activation in the ventral striatum in response to reward anticipation as a vulnerability factor for early nicotine abuse (Peters et al, 2011). Furthermore, neural response to reward anticipation might be related to a very specific level of early alcohol use, only, than predicting early drinking per se.…”

“…In addition, we specifically examined the role of ventral striatal activation in the prediction of early drinking, since decreased activation in this brain region in response to non-drug rewards has been found in alcohol abuse (eg, Wrase et al, 2007), and may thus represent a risk factor for the development of drug addiction (eg, Peters et al, 2011).…”

Common and Dissociable Dysfunction of the Reward System in Bipolar and Unipolar Depression

“…On the basis of prior reports that have documented alterations in reward system responses in association with antipsychotic usage (Abler et al, 2007) or smoking status (Peters et al, 2011), we evaluated the influence of these potentially confounding variables in the present data. Heterogeneity of antidepressants and mood stabilizers used in mood disorder subjects precluded formal evaluation of their impact on observed results (see Limitations, below).…”

Reward circuitry dysfunction in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders and genetic syndromes: animal models and clinical findings

“…Schneider and colleagues [159] found that adolescents with risky substance- use patterns had reduced striatal activity relative to low-risk adolescents during monetary-reward motivation [17][ Similarly, Peters and colleagues [160] reported reduced ventral striatal responses during the anticipation of food reward in adolescent smokers. Notably, Andrews and colleagues [155] found this effect in family members of those with substance abuse, suggesting that this pattern may be evident even in the absence of the direct effects of repeated drug use on the brain.…”