Distress intolerance moderation of motivated attention to cannabis and negative stimuli after induced stress among cannabis users: an ERP study

Abstract

Prevalence of cannabis use is increasing, but many regular users do not develop cannabis use disorder (CUD); thus, CUD risk identification among current users is vital for targeted intervention development. Existing data suggest that high distress intolerance (DI), an individual difference reflective of the ability to tolerate negative affect, may be linked to CUD, but no studies have tested possible neurophysiological mechanisms. Increased motivated attentional processing of cannabis and negative emotional stimuli as indexed by neurophysiology [i.e. the late positive potential (LPP)], particularly during acute stress, may contribute to CUD among high DI users. Frequent cannabis users with high (n = 61) and low DI (n = 44) viewed cannabis, negative, and matched neutral images during electroencephalography (EEG) recording before and after a laboratory stressor. Cannabis cue-elicited modulation of the 1000- to 3000-milliseconds LPP was larger in high DI users at post-stressor only, although the effect was only robust in the 1000- to 2000-milliseconds window. Further, modulation magnitude in the high DI group covaried with stress-relief craving and some CUD indices in the 400- to 1000-milliseconds and 1000- to 3000-milliseconds windows, respectively. No significant effects of DI on negative stimuli-elicited LPP modulation were found, although inverse associations with some CUD indices were observed. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed some evidence for DI moderation of the relation between subjective stressor reactivity and negative stimuli-elicited LPP modulation such that greater stressor reactivity was associated with blunted versus enhanced modulation in the high and low DI groups, respectively. Negative and cannabis stimuli-elicited LPP modulation appear to index distinct, CUD-relevant neural processes in high DI cannabis users.

Electrophysiological Correlates of an Alcohol-Cued Go/NoGo Task: A Dual-Process Approach to Binge Drinking in University Students

“… 1 A binge drinking episode (BDE) was defined as the consumption of 5/7 (females/males) standard drinking units (SDU; 10 g of alcohol, according to Spanish definition of the SDU) on one occasion, raising blood alcohol concentration above 0.08 g/dl [2]. 2 Subjects who regularly consumed cannabis (1 or more units per week, e.g., References [66,67]) were not included.…”

Impact of a computerized distress intolerance intervention on electrocortical reactivity to cannabis and threat cues: A randomized controlled trial.

“…This unexpected finding may be due to the impact of chronic cannabis use on threat processing (Cuttler et al, 2017), which may explain why no significant association between DI and acute stress modulation of threat processing was found in cannabis users, whereas a positive association with threat attention bias was observed in an unselected sample (Macatee, McDermott, et al, 2018). Overall, Macatee et al (2019) cross-sectional data suggest that acute stress modulation of the LPP to cannabis and threat cues are relevant to CUD severity in cannabis users with high DI. However, it is unclear if these effects are a consequence of CUD, a preexisting vulnerability, or a pathoplastic risk factor (i.e., predictive of CUD course) in this group.…”

“…DI is a trait-like individual difference reflective of the perceived or actual capacity to withstand aversive affective states (Leyro et al, 2010). Elevated DI in cannabis users has been consistently linked with greater concurrent CUD severity (Farris et al, 2016; Macatee et al, 2019), as well as prospectively associated with greater cannabis use following a self-guided quit attempt (Hasan et al, 2015). Relatedly, increased use of cannabis to cope with negative affect has been prospectively associated with greater cannabis use during CUD treatment (Gullo et al, 2017), initial onset of cannabis dependence (van der pol et al, 2013), and cannabis dependence persistence over 3 years (van der pol et al, 2015).…”

“…Only one study known to the authors has evaluated neurophysiological correlates of DI and CUD specifically. The late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) recorded using electroencephalography (EEG), was used to examine acute stress modulation of motivated attention to cannabis and threat cues in regular cannabis users with high versus low DI (Macatee et al, 2019). The LPP is a well-established neurophysiological measure of motivated attention that is reliably modulated by negatively-valenced and drug-related cues in substance-using populations (e.g., Dunning et al, 2011; Minnix et al, 2013), including cannabis users (Wölfling et al, 2008).…”

As cold as a fish? Relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits and affective experience during the day: A day reconstruction study

“…The principal-components factor analysis was conducted in order to check whether the relationships between positive affective states and negative affective states were strong enough and whether separate negative and positive affect indexes can be calculated. A similar approach was previously used in other studies that adapted the dimensional approach to emotions [107][108][109]. The analysis identified two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 that explained 76% of the momentary affect variance.…”