Reward System Activation in Response to Alcohol Advertisements Predicts College Drinking

Abstract

In this study, we assess whether activation of the brain's reward system in response to alcohol advertisements is associated with college drinking. Previous research has established a relationship between exposure to alcohol marketing and underage drinking. Within other appetitive domains, the relationship between cue exposure and behavioral enactment is known to rely on activation of the brain's reward system. However, the relationship between neural activation to alcohol advertisements and alcohol consumption has not been studied in a nondisordered population. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 53 college students (32 women) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan while viewing alcohol, food, and control (car and technology) advertisements. Afterward, they completed a survey about their alcohol consumption (including frequency of drinking, typical number of drinks consumed, and frequency of binge drinking) over the previous month. Results: In 43 participants (24 women) meeting inclusion criteria, viewing alcohol advertisements elicited activation in the left orbitofrontal cortex and bilateral ventral striatum-regions of the reward system that typically activate to other appetitive rewards and relate to consumption behaviors. Moreover, the level of self-reported drinking correlated with the magnitude of activation in the left orbitofrontal cortex. Conclusions: Results suggest that alcohol cues are processed within the reward system in a way that may motivate drinking behavior.

Drinking and responses to antidrinking messages among young adults: An fMRI study

“…A longer follow-up is needed to determine (a) whether resistance to devaluation could distinguish young adults who will mature out of heavy drinking from those who will not and (b) whether those who go on to alcohol dependence show a shift from ventral to dorsal striatal cue reactivity. Although another fMRI study linked reward-related drinking cue reactivity to prior drinking in young adults, 48 to our knowledge, ours is the first to relate prior drinking to the potential resistance to devaluation of drinking cues by antidrinking messages.…”

Neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and population health: the neuroscience of chronic disease prevention

“…For example, individual differences in striatal and OFC activation by appetitive food cues have been shown to be associated with body mass index and, in a longitudinal study, to prospectively predict weight gain during the first year of college (e.g., the “freshman fifteen”) in adults, with similar findings being shown in adolescents . Along similar lines, activity in the OFC in response to alcohol cues has also been associated with frequency of drinking among college students . Recent work has sought to use novel experience‐sampling methods that rely on smart phone technology to follow individuals throughout the day in order to relate their daily experiences of self‐control success and failure back to neural measures of hedonic value and response inhibition.…”

A Neurobiological Model of Alcohol Marketing Effects on Underage Drinking

“…For example, functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have used cue-reactivity paradigms to explore the neural correlates of reward processes by presenting a variety of reward-predictive cues (e.g., images of food, alcohol, other drugs) to participants in the scanner. These studies have consistently demonstrated increased activity in the OFC and ventral striatum, which includes the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), in response to cues across various reward domains (e.g., alcohol cues [ Courtney et al, 2018c ], cigarette cues [ David et al, 2005 ; Wagner et al, 2011 ], food cues [ Demos et al, 2012 ; Rapuano et al, 2016 ; van der Laan et al, 2011 ], and drug cues [ Tang et al, 2012 ; Wilson et al, 2004 ]), implicating this network of dopamine-rich regions in processing information about reward in humans.…”

“…Recent work has begun to explore neural responses to advertisements for unhealthy products, with the goal of understanding their relation to real-world consumption. For example, studies examining neural responses to alcohol advertisements ( Courtney et al, 2018c ) and fast-food commercials ( Gearhardt et al, 2014 ; Rapuano et al, 2016 , 2017 ) observed heightened activity in brain regions associated with processing rewards (e.g., NAcc, OFC). Crucially, the variability in response to advertisements within these regions correlated with respective consumption behaviors and health-related outcomes, such that responses to alcohol advertisements were associated with real-world drinking behavior ( Figure 2 ; Courtney et al, 2018c ) and responses to food commercials were associated with obesity metrics ( Rapuano et al, 2016 ).…”

“…(A) College students ( n = 43) viewed alcohol and nonalcohol (control) advertisements while completing an incidental indoor/outdoor task. (B) Activation in the peak region of the left orbitofrontal cortex, identified from the whole-brain comparison of alcohol and nonalcohol (control) advertisements, was associated with self-reported drinking over the previous month (figure adapted from Courtney et al, 2018c ). S = second; max = maximum.…”