Department of Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen, MD, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2021 Apr;62(4):427-436. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13285. Epub 2020 Jul 8.
No clear consensus exists as to whether neurodevelopmental abnormalities among substance users reflect predisposing neural risk factors, neurotoxic effects of substances, or both. Using a longitudinal design, we examined developmental patterns of the bidirectional links between neural mechanisms and substance use throughout adolescence.
167 adolescents (aged 13-14 years at Time 1, 53% male) were assessed annually four times. Risk-related neural processing was assessed by blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses in the insula during a lottery choice task, cognitive control by behavioral performance during the Multi-Source Interference Task, and substance use by adolescents' self-reported cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use.
Latent change score modeling indicated that greater substance use predicted increased insula activation during risk processing, but the effects of insula activation on changes in substance use were not significant. The coupling effect from substance use to insula activation was particularly strong for adolescents with low cognitive control, which supports the theorized moderating role of cognitive control.
Our results elucidate how substance use may alter brain development to be biased toward maladaptive decision-making, particularly among adolescents with poor cognitive control. Furthermore, the current findings underscore that cognitive control may be an important target in the prevention and treatment of adolescent substance use given its moderating role in the neuroadaptive effects of substance use on brain development.
目前还没有明确的共识，即物质使用者的神经发育异常是否反映了潜在的神经风险因素、物质的神经毒性作用，或者两者兼而有之。本研究采用纵向设计，考察了青少年时期神经机制与物质使用之间双向联系的发展模式。
167 名青少年（第一次评估时年龄为 13-14 岁，53%为男性）每年评估四次。风险相关的神经处理通过在彩票选择任务中大脑岛的血氧水平依赖反应来评估，认知控制通过多源干扰任务中的行为表现来评估，物质使用通过青少年自我报告的香烟、酒精和大麻使用情况来评估。
潜在变化分数模型表明，更多的物质使用预示着风险处理过程中大脑岛的激活增加，但大脑岛激活对物质使用变化的影响并不显著。对于认知控制较差的青少年来说，物质使用对大脑岛激活的耦合效应特别强，这支持了认知控制的调节作用理论。
我们的研究结果阐明了物质使用如何改变大脑发育，使其偏向于适应性差的决策，特别是对于认知控制较差的青少年。此外，由于认知控制在物质使用对大脑发育的神经适应性影响中具有调节作用，因此，目前的研究结果强调了认知控制可能是预防和治疗青少年物质使用的一个重要目标。
