TY - JOUR A1 - Balta Beylergil, Sinem A1 - Beck, Anne A1 - Deserno, Lorenz A1 - Lorenz, Robert C. A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Heinz, Andreas A1 - Obermayer, Klaus T1 - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contributes to the impaired behavioral adaptation in alcohol dependence JF - NeuroImage: Clinical : a journal of diseases affecting the nervous system N2 - Substance-dependent individuals often lack the ability to adjust decisions flexibly in response to the changes in reward contingencies. Prediction errors (PEs) are thought to mediate flexible decision-making by updating the reward values associated with available actions. In this study, we explored whether the neurobiological correlates of PEs are altered in alcohol dependence. Behavioral, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were simultaneously acquired from 34 abstinent alcohol-dependent patients (ADP) and 26 healthy controls (HC) during a probabilistic reward-guided decision-making task with dynamically changing reinforcement contingencies. A hierarchical Bayesian inference method was used to fit and compare learning models with different assumptions about the amount of task-related information subjects may have inferred during the experiment. Here, we observed that the best-fitting model was a modified Rescorla-Wagner type model, the “double-update” model, which assumes that subjects infer the knowledge that reward contingencies are anti-correlated, and integrate both actual and hypothetical outcomes into their decisions. Moreover, comparison of the best-fitting model's parameters showed that ADP were less sensitive to punishments compared to HC. Hence, decisions of ADP after punishments were loosely coupled with the expected reward values assigned to them. A correlation analysis between the model-generated PEs and the fMRI data revealed a reduced association between these PEs and the BOLD activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of ADP. A hemispheric asymmetry was observed in the DLPFC when positive and negative PE signals were analyzed separately. The right DLPFC activity in ADP showed a reduced correlation with positive PEs. On the other hand, ADP, particularly the patients with high dependence severity, recruited the left DLPFC to a lesser extent than HC for processing negative PE signals. These results suggest that the DLPFC, which has been linked to adaptive control of action selection, may play an important role in cognitive inflexibility observed in alcohol dependence when reinforcement contingencies change. Particularly, the left DLPFC may contribute to this impaired behavioral adaptation, possibly by impeding the extinction of the actions that no longer lead to a reward. KW - Alcohol dependence KW - Prediction error KW - Reinforcement learning KW - Reversal learning KW - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex KW - Decision-making Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2017.04.010 SN - 2213-1582 VL - 15 SP - 80 EP - 94 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Nebe, S. A1 - Sundmacher, L. A1 - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören A1 - Wittchen, H. U. A1 - Smolka, M. A1 - Zimmermann, U. A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Huys, Q. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Heinz, A. T1 - From goals to habits in alcohol dependence BT - association with treatment outcome and cognitive bias modification training T2 - European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists Y1 - 2018 SN - 0924-9338 SN - 1778-3585 VL - 48 SP - S274 EP - S274 PB - Elsevier CY - Paris ER - TY - GEN A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Sommer, C. A1 - Nebe, S. A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören A1 - Wittchen, H. U. A1 - Smolka, M. A1 - Zimmermann, U. A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Huys, Q. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Heinz, A. T1 - Pavlovian-instrumental transfer in the course of alcohol use disorder T2 - European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists N2 - Background: Pavlovian processes are thought to play an important role in the development, maintenance and relapse of alcohol dependence, possibly by influencing and usurping on- going thought and behavior. The influence of Pavlovian stimuli on on-going behavior is paradigmatically measured by Pavlovian-to-instrumental-transfer (PIT) tasks. These involve multiple stages and are complex. Whether increased PIT is involved in human alcohol dependence is uncertain. We therefore aimed to establish and validate a modified PIT paradigm that would be robust, consistent, and tolerated by healthy controls as well as by patients suffering from alcohol dependence, and to explore whether alcohol dependence is associated with enhanced Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer. Methods: 32 recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 32 age and gender matched healthy controls performed a PIT task with instrumental go/no-go approach behaviours. The task involved both Pavlovian stimuli associated with monetary rewards and losses, and images of drinks. Results: Both patients and healthy controls showed a robust and temporally stable PIT effect. Strengths of PIT effects to drug-related and monetary conditioned stimuli were highly correlated. Patients more frequently showed a PIT effect and the effect was stronger in response to aversively conditioned CSs (conditioned suppression), but there was no group difference in response to appetitive CSs. Conclusion: The implementation of PIT has favorably robust properties in chronic alcohol- dependent patients and in healthy controls. It shows internal consistency between monetary and drug-related cues. The findings support an association of alcohol dependence with an increased propensity towards PIT. Y1 - 2018 SN - 0924-9338 SN - 1778-3585 VL - 48 SP - S546 EP - S546 PB - Elsevier CY - ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUX ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kaminski, Jakob A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Awasthi, Swapnil A1 - Ruggeri, Barbara A1 - Deserno, Lorenz A1 - Laura, Daedelow A1 - Banaschewski, Tobias A1 - Bokde, Arun A1 - Quinlan, Erin Burke A1 - Buechel, Christian A1 - Bromberg, Uli A1 - Desrivieres, Sylvane A1 - Flor, Herta A1 - Frouin, Vincent A1 - Garavan, Hugh A1 - Gowland, Penny A1 - Ittermann, Bernd A1 - Martinot, Jean-Luc A1 - Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillere A1 - Nees, Frauke A1 - Orfanos, Dimitri Papadopoulos A1 - Paus, Tomas A1 - Poustka, Luise A1 - Smolka, Michael A1 - Froehner, Juliane A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Whelan, Robert A1 - Ripke, Stephan A1 - Schumann, Gunter A1 - Heinz, Andreas T1 - Variance in Dopaminergic Markers BT - a possible marker of individual differences in IQ? T2 - Biological psychiatry : a journal of psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics ; a publication of the Society of Biological Psychiatry KW - Intelligence KW - Dopamine KW - Epigenetic Biomarkers KW - Reward Anticipation KW - Polygenic Risk Score Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.02.311 SN - 0006-3223 SN - 1873-2402 VL - 83 IS - 9 SP - S118 EP - S118 PB - Elsevier CY - New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Sommer, Christian A1 - Nebe, Stephan A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören A1 - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich A1 - Smolka, Michael N. A1 - Zimmermann, Ulrich S. A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Huys, Quentin J. M. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Heinz, Andreas T1 - Multi-level evidence of general pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in alcohol use disorder T2 - Alcoholism : clinical and experimental research ; the official journal of the American Medical Society on Alcoholism and the Research Society on Alcoholism Y1 - 2018 SN - 0145-6008 SN - 1530-0277 VL - 42 SP - 128A EP - 128A PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kaminski, Jakob A. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Awasthi, Swapnil A1 - Ruggeri, Barbara A1 - Deserno, Lorenz A1 - Banaschewski, Tobias A1 - Bokde, Arun L. W. A1 - Bromberg, Uli A1 - Büchel, Christian A1 - Quinlan, Erin Burke A1 - Desrivieres, Sylvane A1 - Flor, Herta A1 - Frouin, Vincent A1 - Garavan, Hugh A1 - Gowland, Penny A1 - Ittermann, Bernd A1 - Martinot, Jean-Luc A1 - Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillere A1 - Nees, Frauke A1 - Orfanos, Dimitri Papadopoulos A1 - Paus, Tomas A1 - Poustka, Luise A1 - Smolka, Michael N. A1 - Fröhner, Juliane H. A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Whelan, Robert A1 - Ripke, Stephan A1 - Schumann, Gunter A1 - Heinz, Andreas T1 - Epigenetic variance in dopamine D2 receptor BT - a marker of IQ malleability? JF - Translational Psychiatry N2 - Genetic and environmental factors both contribute to cognitive test performance. A substantial increase in average intelligence test results in the second half of the previous century within one generation is unlikely to be explained by genetic changes. One possible explanation for the strong malleability of cognitive performance measure is that environmental factors modify gene expression via epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic factors may help to understand the recent observations of an association between dopamine-dependent encoding of reward prediction errors and cognitive capacity, which was modulated by adverse life events. The possible manifestation of malleable biomarkers contributing to variance in cognitive test performance, and thus possibly contributing to the "missing heritability" between estimates from twin studies and variance explained by genetic markers, is still unclear. Here we show in 1475 healthy adolescents from the IMaging and GENetics (IMAGEN) sample that general IQ (gIQ) is associated with (1) polygenic scores for intelligence, (2) epigenetic modification of DRD2 gene, (3) gray matter density in striatum, and (4) functional striatal activation elicited by temporarily surprising reward-predicting cues. Comparing the relative importance for the prediction of gIQ in an overlapping subsample, our results demonstrate neurobiological correlates of the malleability of gIQ and point to equal importance of genetic variance, epigenetic modification of DRD2 receptor gene, as well as functional striatal activation, known to influence dopamine neurotransmission. Peripheral epigenetic markers are in need of confirmation in the central nervous system and should be tested in longitudinal settings specifically assessing individual and environmental factors that modify epigenetic structure. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-018-0222-7 SN - 2158-3188 VL - 8 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Awasthi, Swapnil A1 - Kaminski, Jakob A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Ruggeri, Barbara A1 - Ripke, Stephan A1 - Schumann, Gunter A1 - Heinz, Andreas T1 - A neural signature of malleability BT - general intelligence correlates with ventral striatal activation and epigenetic makers of dopamine neurotransmission T2 - European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology N2 - General intelligence has a substantial genetic background in children, adolescents, and adults, but environmental factors also strongly correlate with cognitive performance as evidenced by a strong (up to one SD) increase in average intelligence test results in the second half of the previous century. This change occurred in a period apparently too short to accommodate radical genetic changes. It is highly suggestive that environmental factors interact with genotype by possible modification of epigenetic factors that regulate gene expression and thus contribute to individual malleability. This modification might as well be reflected in recent observations of an association between dopamine-dependent encoding of reward prediction errors and cognitive capacity, which was modulated by adverse life events. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2017.08.139 SN - 0924-977X SN - 1873-7862 VL - 29 SP - S858 EP - S859 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schad, Daniel A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Friedel, Eva A1 - Sommer, Christian A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Hägele, Claudia A1 - Bernhardt, Nadine A1 - Nebe, Stephan A1 - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören A1 - Liu, Shuyan A1 - Eichmann, Uta A1 - Beck, Anne A1 - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Sterzer, Philipp A1 - Zimmermann, Ulrich S. A1 - Smolka, Michael N. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Huys, Quentin J. M. A1 - Heinz, Andreas A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin T1 - Neural correlates of instrumental responding in the context of alcohol-related cues index disorder severity and relapse risk JF - European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience : official organ of the German Society for Biological Psychiatry N2 - The influence of Pavlovian conditioned stimuli on ongoing behavior may contribute to explaining how alcohol cues stimulate drug seeking and intake. Using a Pavlovian-instrumental transfer task, we investigated the effects of alcohol-related cues on approach behavior (i.e., instrumental response behavior) and its neural correlates, and related both to the relapse after detoxification in alcohol-dependent patients. Thirty-one recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 24 healthy controls underwent instrumental training, where approach or non-approach towards initially neutral stimuli was reinforced by monetary incentives. Approach behavior was tested during extinction with either alcohol-related or neutral stimuli (as Pavlovian cues) presented in the background during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Patients were subsequently followed up for 6 months. We observed that alcohol-related background stimuli inhibited the approach behavior in detoxified alcohol-dependent patients (t = -3.86, p < .001), but not in healthy controls (t = -0.92, p = .36). This behavioral inhibition was associated with neural activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) (t((30)) = 2.06, p < .05). Interestingly, both the effects were only present in subsequent abstainers, but not relapsers and in those with mild but not severe dependence. Our data show that alcohol-related cues can acquire inhibitory behavioral features typical of aversive stimuli despite being accompanied by a stronger NAcc activation, suggesting salience attribution. The fact that these findings are restricted to abstinence and milder illness suggests that they may be potential resilience factors. KW - Alcohol dependence KW - Human neuroimaging KW - Nucleus accumbens KW - Pavlovian-instrumental transfer KW - Relapse Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0860-4 SN - 0940-1334 SN - 1433-8491 VL - 269 IS - 3 SP - 295 EP - 308 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Nebe, Stephan A1 - Sommer, Christian A1 - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Schad, Daniel A1 - Friedel, Eva A1 - Veer, Ilya M. A1 - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Ripke, Stephan A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Huys, Quentin J. M. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Smolka, Michael N. A1 - Heinz, Andreas T1 - Pavlovian-To-Instrumental Transfer and Alcohol Consumption in Young Male Social Drinkers BT - Behavioral, Neural and Polygenic Correlates JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine N2 - In animals and humans, behavior can be influenced by irrelevant stimuli, a phenomenon called Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT). In subjects with substance use disorder, PIT is even enhanced with functional activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and amygdala. While we observed enhanced behavioral and neural PIT effects in alcohol-dependent subjects, we here aimed to determine whether behavioral PIT is enhanced in young men with high-risk compared to low-risk drinking and subsequently related functional activation in an a-priori region of interest encompassing the NAcc and amygdala and related to polygenic risk for alcohol consumption. A representative sample of 18-year old men (n = 1937) was contacted: 445 were screened, 209 assessed: resulting in 191 valid behavioral, 139 imaging and 157 genetic datasets. None of the subjects fulfilled criteria for alcohol dependence according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TextRevision (DSM-IV-TR). We measured how instrumental responding for rewards was influenced by background Pavlovian conditioned stimuli predicting action-independent rewards and losses. Behavioral PIT was enhanced in high-compared to low-risk drinkers (b = 0.09, SE = 0.03, z = 2.7, p < 0.009). Across all subjects, we observed PIT-related neural blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the right amygdala (t = 3.25, p(SVC) = 0.04, x = 26, y = -6, z = -12), but not in NAcc. The strength of the behavioral PIT effect was positively correlated with polygenic risk for alcohol consumption (r(s) = 0.17, p = 0.032). We conclude that behavioral PIT and polygenic risk for alcohol consumption might be a biomarker for a subclinical phenotype of risky alcohol consumption, even if no drug-related stimulus is present. The association between behavioral PIT effects and the amygdala might point to habitual processes related to out PIT task. In non-dependent young social drinkers, the amygdala rather than the NAcc is activated during PIT; possible different involvement in association with disease trajectory should be investigated in future studies. KW - Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer KW - amygdala KW - alcohol KW - polygenic risk KW - high risk drinkers Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8081188 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 8 IS - 8 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sebold, Miriam Hannah A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Jetzschmann, P. A1 - Schad, Daniel A1 - Nebe, S. A1 - Schlagenhauf, Florian A1 - Heinz, A. A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina T1 - Reward and avoidance learning in the context of aversive environments and possible implications for depressive symptoms JF - Psychopharmacology N2 - Background Aversive stimuli in the environment influence human actions. This includes valence-dependent influences on action selection, e.g., increased avoidance but decreased approach behavior. However, it is yet unclear how aversive stimuli interact with complex learning and decision-making in the reward and avoidance domain. Moreover, the underlying computational mechanisms of these decision-making biases are unknown. Methods To elucidate these mechanisms, 54 healthy young male subjects performed a two-step sequential decision-making task, which allows to computationally model different aspects of learning, e.g., model-free, habitual, and model-based, goal-directed learning. We used a within-subject design, crossing task valence (reward vs. punishment learning) with emotional context (aversive vs. neutral background stimuli). We analyzed choice data, applied a computational model, and performed simulations. Results Whereas model-based learning was not affected, aversive stimuli interacted with model-free learning in a way that depended on task valence. Thus, aversive stimuli increased model-free avoidance learning but decreased model-free reward learning. The computational model confirmed this effect: the parameter lambda that indicates the influence of reward prediction errors on decision values was increased in the punishment condition but decreased in the reward condition when aversive stimuli were present. Further, by using the inferred computational parameters to simulate choice data, our effects were captured. Exploratory analyses revealed that the observed biases were associated with subclinical depressive symptoms. Conclusion Our data show that aversive environmental stimuli affect complex learning and decision-making, which depends on task valence. Further, we provide a model of the underlying computations of this affective modulation. Finally, our finding of increased decision-making biases in subjects reporting subclinical depressive symptoms matches recent reports of amplified Pavlovian influences on action selection in depression and suggests a potential vulnerability factor for mood disorders. We discuss our findings in the light of the involvement of the neuromodulators serotonin and dopamine. KW - Reward learning KW - Avoidance learning KW - Reinforcement learning KW - Computational psychiatry KW - Decision-making KW - Affective modulation KW - Depression symptoms Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-019-05299-9 SN - 0033-3158 SN - 1432-2072 VL - 236 IS - 8 SP - 2437 EP - 2449 PB - Springer CY - New York ER -