Behavioral Regulation and Real-Time Reinforcement in Alcohol Dependence

描述（由申请人提供）：行为失调是酒精依赖的风险因素，可能导致酒精依赖发作后治疗失败。对行为的调节是一个复杂的过程，它依赖于大脑中的几个功能回路，这些回路用于权衡决策的成本和收益。在酒精依赖中，参与行为调节的神经回路受到影响的程度在很大程度上仍然未知。为了解决这种知识的缺乏，拟议的研究旨在：1）将实时促味剂递送与已知参与酒精依赖重要区域的任务相结合，如腹侧纹状体，前扣带皮层和额下回; 2）确定酒精依赖个体与社交饮酒者相比，功能连接模式如何不同，以确定对预测酒精的线索的自动和控制反应的机制。酒精依赖和社交饮酒者将完成神经认知任务，评估奖励敏感性，同时进行功能性磁共振成像（fMRI），以确定受酒精依赖影响的大脑区域，并更好地了解酒精依赖个体的功能连接模式可能如何不同。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Behavioral dysregulation is a risk factor for alcohol dependence and likely contributes to failed treatment attempts after the onset of alcohol dependence. Regulation over behavior is a complex process that relies on several functional circuits within the brain that are used to weigh costs and benefits of decisions. The degree to which neural circuits involved in behavioral regulation are affected in alcohol dependence remain largely unknown. To address this dearth of knowledge the proposed study aims to 1) integrate real-time tastant delivery with tasks known to engage regions important for alcohol dependence such as the ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus and 2) determine how functional connectivity patterns differ in alcohol dependent individuals compared to social drinkers, in order to determine the mechanisms that underlie automatic and controlled responses to cues that predict alcohol. Alcohol dependent and social drinkers will complete neurocognitive tasks that assess reward sensitivity while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine those brain regions that are affected in alcohol dependence, and to better understand how functional connectivity patterns may differ in alcohol dependent individuals.