Brain Potentials Measured During a Go/NoGo Task Predict Completion of Substance Abuse Treatment

Abstract

Background US nationwide estimates indicate 50–80% of prisoners have a history of substance abuse or dependence. Tailoring substance abuse treatment to specific needs of incarcerated individuals could improve effectiveness of treating substance dependence and preventing drug abuse relapse. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that pre-treatment neural measures of a Go/NoGo task would predict which individuals would or would not complete a 12-week cognitive behavioral substance abuse treatment program. Methods Adult incarcerated participants (N=89; Females=55) who volunteered for substance abuse treatment performed a response inhibition (Go/NoGo) task while event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded. Stimulus- and response-locked ERPs were compared between individuals who completed (N=68; Females=45) and discontinued (N=21; Females=10) treatment. Results As predicted, stimulus-locked P2, response-locked error-related negativity (ERN/Ne), and response-locked error positivity (Pe), measured with windowed time-domain and principal component analysis, differed between groups. Using logistic regression and support-vector machine (i.e., pattern classifiers) models, P2 and Pe predicted treatment completion above and beyond other measures (i.e., N2, P300, ERN/Ne, age, sex, IQ, impulsivity, and self-reported depression, anxiety, motivation for change, and years of drug abuse). Conclusions We conclude individuals who discontinue treatment exhibited deficiencies in sensory gating, as indexed by smaller P2, error-monitoring, as indexed by smaller ERN/Ne, and adjusting response strategy post-error, as indexed by larger Pe. However, the combination of P2 and Pe reliably predicted 83.33% of individuals who discontinued treatment. These results may help in the development of individualized therapies, which could lead to more favorable, long-term outcomes.

Brain potentials predict substance abuse treatment completion in a prison sample

“…Here, we add ERP measures of deficiencies in orienting and processing of novel and distractor stimuli to early perceptual and error processing (Steele et al. 2014) that are useful in predicting individuals at greatest risk of discontinuing substance abuse treatment programs. Replication of these effects is necessary with incarcerated and nonincarcerated samples.…”

“…We have previously used this method highlighting that PCA measures are more sensitive than windowed components in predicting outcomes (Steele et al. 2014). All scalp electrodes were used in the PCA definition of a five‐component solution was extracted for VO‐R and six‐component solution was extracted for VO‐D and Go/NoGo accounting for 93.02%, 94.55%, and 92.72% of the variance, respectively.…”

“…Specific implementation of SVM with feature selection is thoroughly described in Steele et al. (2014). These steps were carried out for each task to best identify task‐specific predictions of treatment outcome.…”

“…In addition, a recent investigation by our group found that multiple ERP components (less positive stimulus‐locked P2, less negative response‐locked ERN/Ne, and increased response‐locked Pe amplitudes) indexing perceptual gating and error processing were associated with early substance abuse treatment discontinuation in a sample of inmates with SUDs (Steele et al. 2014). As we discussed in this study, less positive stimulus‐locked P2 is thought to index early sensory gating and the ability of individuals to filter extraneous information when allocating attention (Boutros et al.…”

Dysfunctional error-related processing in female psychopathy

“…Furthermore, as there may be a possible overlap between the Pe and P300 ERP components (Leuthold and Sommer, 1999), we investigated stimulus-locked ERPs (see Supplemental Materials) to test out the potential overlap in the Pe signal. In addition to classic time-domain measures of ERP components, we incorporated an approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) to allow for the examination of subcomponents encompassing the ERN/Ne and Pe (Steele et al, 2014).…”