title: No association of goal-directed and habitual control with alcohol consumption in young adults.
abstract: Alcohol dependence is a mental disorder that has been associated with an imbalance in behavioral control favoring model-free habitual over model-based goal-directed strategies. It is as yet unknown, however, whether such an imbalance reflects a predisposing vulnerability or results as a consequence of repeated and/or excessive alcohol exposure. We, therefore, examined the association of alcohol consumption with model-based goal-directed and model-free habitual control in 188 18-year-old social drinkers in a two-step sequential decision-making task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging before prolonged alcohol misuse could have led to severe neurobiological adaptations. Behaviorally, participants showed a mixture of model-free and model-based decision-making as observed previously. Measures of impulsivity were positively related to alcohol consumption. In contrast, neither model-free nor model-based decision weights nor the trade-off between them were associated with alcohol consumption. There were also no significant associations between alcohol consumption and neural correlates of model-free or model-based decision quantities in either ventral striatum or ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Exploratory whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses with a lenient threshold revealed early onset of drinking to be associated with an enhanced representation of model-free reward prediction errors in the posterior putamen. These results suggest that an imbalance between model-based goal-directed and model-free habitual control might rather not be a trait marker of alcohol intake per se.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.|Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3968-9557
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nebe
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.|Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Nils B
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9552-3781
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Kroemer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.|Social and Preventive Medicine, Area of Excellence Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Schad
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bernhardt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sebold
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.|Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Scholl
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kuitunen-Paul
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heinz
authors.affiliation: Social and Preventive Medicine, Area of Excellence Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Rapp
authors.affiliation: Translational Neuromodeling Unit, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Zürich, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland.|Centre for Addictive Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Quentin J M
authors.initials: QJM
authors.lastname: Huys
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.|Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael N
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5398-5569
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Smolka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003657:Decision Making; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006040:Goals; D006184:Habits; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D012201:Reward; D066328:Ventral Striatum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging
keywords: alcohol; goal-directed; reinforcement learning