Trajectories of Reinforcement Sensitivity During Adolescence and Risk for Substance Use

Abstract

Developmental neuroscience models suggest that changes in responsiveness to incentives contribute to increases in adolescent risk behavior, including substance use. Trajectories of sensitivity to reward (SR) and sensitivity to punishment (SP) were examined and tested as predictors of escalation of early substance use in a community sample of adolescents (N=765, mean baseline age 11.8 years, 54% female). SR and SP were assessed using a laboratory task. Across three annual assessments, SR increased, and rapid escalation was associated with increases in substance use. SP declined and was unrelated to substance use. Findings support contemporary views of adolescent brain development, and suggest that early adolescent substance use is motivated by approach responses to reward, rather than failure to avoid potential aversive consequences.

Reward sensitivity, attentional bias, and executive control in early adolescent alcohol use

“…The current finding that adolescents with higher reward sensitivity reported higher levels of alcohol use is in line with previous research among adolescents (Colder et al, 2013;Jonker, Ostafin, Glashouwer, van Hemel-Ruiter, & de Jong, 2014;Knyazev, 2004;Lopez-Vergara et al, 2012;O'Connor & Colder, 2005;Pardo et al, 2007). These results suggest that in the early stages, reward sensitivity may promote adolescent alcohol use.…”

“…That is, part of the relation between age and alcohol use could be explained by the increase of reward sensitivity when adolescents grow older. This finding is in line with recent research showing that reward sensitivity increased during adolescence and that increases in reward sensitivity were related to increases in substance use (Colder et al, 2013). However, due to the correlational nature of this study is it not possible to conclude about individual growth trajectories on the basis of the present findings.…”

“…These results suggest that in the early stages, reward sensitivity may promote adolescent alcohol use. Consistent with such view, recent research using performance measures of reward and punishment sensitivity showed that reactivity to rewarding cues was positively related to concurrent (Colder & O'Connor, 2002;van Hemel-Ruiter et al, 2013) and prospective adolescent alcohol use (van Hemel-Ruiter, de Jong, Ostafin, & Oldehinkel, submitted for publication), and that the increase in reward sensitivity over two years was a significant predictor of increase in young adolescent alcohol use over these years (Colder et al, 2013).…”

A latent growth curve analysis of alcohol-use specific parenting and adolescent alcohol use

“…The median family income was $60,000. Additional description of recruitment and the sample are reported in Colder et al (2012).…”

Brain network alterations in the inflammatory soup animal model of migraine

“…Using almost identical methods, we showed recently that the salience network of clinical migraineurs exhibits increased connectivity with the primary somatosensory cortex (Maleki et al, 2012). The fact that dural exposure to IS induced similar changes in the awake rat suggests that local application of inflammatory soup to the dura, well beyond its ability to activate meningeal nociceptors, is capable of altering: (1) components of the salience network that determine the magnitude of the organism response to stimuli that originate inside the body (i.e., interoception) (Colder et al, 2013) and, (2) components of the sensorimotor network that determine the extent of enhanced nociceptive processing (i.e., neuronal firing to a given stimulus). We observed a region of the primary somatosensory cortex (jaw region) to display reduced connectivity with the salience network for IS vs. SIF.…”