Brain activation, response inhibition, and increased risk for substance use disorder.
BACKGROUND
Youth at high risk for developing substance use disorders (SUDs) often exhibit differences which suggest inhibitory impairments when compared to average risk youth.


METHODS
To examine the underlying neural activity related to these impairments, functional MRI (fMRI) was employed in adolescents during an antisaccade task requiring inhibition of an eye movement response. Each subject's level of neurobehavioral disinhibition (ND) was assessed using a multi-informant, multi-method approach, which has been shown to be highly predictive of SUD onset. The fMRI data was categorized into neural regions of interest according to total frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobe activation.


RESULTS
Results demonstrated that ND score was negatively correlated with total amount of frontal activation, but was not significantly correlated with total activation in any other neural region.


CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate deficits in frontal activation in youth with high amounts of ND, suggesting a possible developmental delay of executive processes in high-risk youth.
McNamee
Rebecca L
RL
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA. rlandes@stat.cmu.edu
Dunfee
Kathryn L
KL
Luna
Beatriz
B
Clark
Duncan B
DB
Eddy
William F
WF
Tarter
Ralph E
RE
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D002648:Child; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000503:physiopathology