Delay discounting and alcohol consumption correlate with dorsal anterior insula activation during choice in nontreatment‐seeking heavy drinkers

Abstract

Background:The anterior insular cortex (AIC), a prominent salience network node, integrates interoceptive information and emotional states into decision making. While AIC activation during delay discounting (DD) in alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been previously reported, the associations between AIC activation, impulsive choice, alcohol consumption, and connectivity remain unknown. We therefore tested AIC brain responses during DD in heavy drinkers and their association with DD performance, alcohol drinking, and task-based connectivity.Methods: Twenty-nine heavy drinkers (12 females; mean (SD) age=31.5 ± 6.1 years; mean (SD)=40.8 ± 23.4 drinks/week) completed a DD task during functional MRI.Regions activated during DD decision making were tested for correlation with DD behavior and alcohol drinking. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) models assessed the task-dependent functional connectivity (FC) of activation during choice.Results: Delay discounting choice activated bilateral anterior insular cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and left precentral gyrus. Right dorsal (d) AIC activation during choice negatively correlated with discounting of delayed rewards and alcohol consumption. PPI analysis revealed FC of the right dAIC to both the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices-key nodes in the midline default mode network. Conclusions:Greater dAIC involvement in intertemporal choice may confer more adaptive behavior (lower impulsivity and alcohol consumption). Moreover, salience network processes governing discounting may require midline default mode (precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex) recruitment. These findings supporta key adaptive role for right dAIC in decision making involving future rewards and risky drinking.

Alcohol Cue Processing in Co-Occurring Bipolar Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder

“…13 Elevated choice impulsivity (being overly present) may play a central role given that reduced right anterior insula, corresponding with steeper delayed reward discounting, has been associated with a range of problematic alcohol drinking indices in individuals who drink alcohol heavily. 64 While in conflict with reward hypersensitivity models of BD, dorsal striatal hypoactivation to alcohol cues in BD + AUD is aligned with previous studies characterizing BD with striatal hypoactivation during reward processing. 14,56 Existing theoretical frameworks for contextualizing alcohol cue processing in BD + AUD may include the dopamine hypothesis of BD and the transdiagnostic Reward Deficiency Syndrome theory of addictive and impulsive/compulsive disorders.…”

“…Considering within-group correlation findings, our data could suggest that rIFG/insula hypoactivation in BD + AUD represents a traitlike deficit in downregulating approach motivation (eg, conditioned responding) and craving-related affect when alcohol cues are encountered . Elevated choice impulsivity (being overly present) may play a central role given that reduced right anterior insula, corresponding with steeper delayed reward discounting, has been associated with a range of problematic alcohol drinking indices in individuals who drink alcohol heavily …”

Brain response in heavy drinkers during cross-commodity alcohol and money discounting with potentially real rewards: A preliminary study

“…Thirty-two non-treatment-seeking heavy drinking participants were recruited through community advertisements, gave informed consent prior to study procedures, and were paid in cash ($220) at the end of the study day for participation. Eight subjects provided incomplete data sets resulting in the n =24 complete data sets reported here 1 ( Table 1 ); all participants were a subset of a previously published study ( Halcomb et al., 2022 ). All procedures were approved by the Indiana University Institutional Review Board.…”

Adaptive Decision Method in C3I System

“…At present, search-based software engineering has become a research hotspots. However, the research on the application of this theory to adaptive software is still in the exploratory stage [13], and the main work focuses on the framework design [14], architecture optimization [15], software testing [16], development process and workload estimation [17], programming and repair [18] of adaptive software systems. For example, the Moses framework is an adaptive system optimization framework for service-oriented computing [19], and the research on the combination of adaptive software architecture and search-based software engineering proposed by Ref.…”