Autonomic Responses As Predictors of Substance Abuse: Emotional Reactivity to Reward Extinction

2^nd PAPER WITHIN ORGANIZED PAPER SYMPOSIUM

 

TITLE:  Autonomic Responses as Predictors of Substance Abuse: Emotional Reactivity to Reward Extinction

 

PRESENTATION TYPE: Organized Paper Symposium Abstract

 

CATEGORY/THEME: Epidemiology and Etiology

ABSTRACT BODY:

 

Introduction:

Autonomic responses to reward and reward extinction have been theorized to be important factors in the development of externalizing behaviors, including violence, psychopathology, and conduct problems (Beauchaine et al., 2001; Beauchaine et al, 2008). To date, relatively little work has explored the role these factors play in the development of substance use, particularly tobacco and marijuana use. Based upon recent work indicating that externalizing issues are linked to deficits in processing the omission of predicted reward (Gatzke-Kopp et al., 2009), it is predicted that autonomic hyper-arousal during reward extinction may play a role in future substance use.

 

Methods:

The current study measured cardiac and electrodermal responses during a reward and reward extinction paradigm (Beauchaine et al., 2001) in a group of college freshman (N = 229, 118 males) oversampled for conduct problems. The average age of participants at assessment was 18.5 years, and all participants were under 21 years of age. After completion of the laboratory protocol, participants were followed for two additional years to assess future substance use. Due to recent work suggesting that the cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) serves as a specific marker of sympathetic nervous system response to incentives (Richter et al., 2009), we predicted that PEP during reward extinction would best reflect the type of emotional excitation associated with substance use.

 

Results:

Analyses indicated that PEP during extinction predicted alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use at two and three year follow-up, suggesting that individuals who have large excitatory responses to the omission of predicted reward are also those who go on to use substances more frequently and in higher amounts.

 

Conclusions:

Results of this study suggest that emotional responses to the removal of reinforcing stimuli may have considerable predictive utility regarding the development of substance use. Understanding autonomic predictors is of importance given the emerging emphasis on biologically-based prevention strategies, including those that address emotion regulation. Use of mindfulness, integrative body-mind training (IBMT), or person-centered biofeedback techniques as preventive strategies may directly assist those at risk to identify emotion-based cues and down-regulate rather than responding behaviorally to internal excitatory cues. We are currently implementing a mindfulness-based preventive intervention to assess this possibility among individuals prone to mood-based rash action.