Does incentive-elicited nucleus accumbens activation differ by substance of abuse? An examination with adolescents.

ABSTRACT: Numerous questions surround the nature of reward processing in the developing adolescent brain, particularly in regard to polysubstance use. We therefore sought to examine incentive-elicited brain activation in the context of three common substances of abuse (cannabis, tobacco, and alcohol). Due to the role of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in incentive processing, we compared activation in this region during anticipation of reward and loss using a monetary incentive delay (MID) task. Adolescents (ages 14-18; 66% male) were matched on age, gender, and frequency of use of any common substances within six distinct groups: cannabis-only (n=14), tobacco-only (n=34), alcohol-only (n=12), cannabis+tobacco (n=17), cannabis+tobacco+alcohol (n=17), and non-using controls (n=38). All groups showed com

SUBMITTER: Karoly HC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4657439 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature