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. 2013 Feb 21:7:43.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00043. eCollection 2013.

Emotional and non-emotional pathways to impulsive behavior and addiction

Ana Torres  1 , Andrés Catena, Alberto Megías, Antonio Maldonado, Antonio Cándido, Antonio Verdejo-García, José C Perales
Affiliations

Emotional and non-emotional pathways to impulsive behavior and addiction

Ana Torres et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Erratum in

  • Front Hum Neurosci. 2014;8:411

Abstract

Impulsivity is tightly linked to addiction. However, there are several pathways by means of which impulsive individuals are more prone to become addicts, or to suffer an addiction more intensely and for a longer period. One of those pathways involves an inadequate appraisal or regulation of positive and negative emotions, leading to lack of control over hazardous behaviors, and inappropriate decisions. In the present work, we assessed cocaine-dependent individuals (CDI; n = 20), pathological gamblers (PG; n = 21), and healthy controls (HC; n = 23) in trait impulsivity measures (UPPS-P model's dimensions), and decision-making tasks (Go/No-go; delay-discounting task). During the Go/No-go task, electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded, and Go/No-go stimuli-evoked potentials (ERP) were extracted. Theory-driven ERP analyses focused on the No-go > Go difference in the N2 ERP. Our results show that negative urgency is one of the several psychological features that distinguish addicts from HC. Nevertheless, among the dimensions of trait impulsivity, negative urgency is unique at independently covarying with gambling over-pathologization in the PG sample. Cocaine-dependent individuals performed more poorly than gamblers in the Go/No-go task, and showed abnormal Go/No-go stimuli-evoked potentials. The difference between the No-go stimulus-evoked N2, and the Go one was attenuated by severity and intensity of chronic cocaine use. Emotional dimensions of impulsivity, however, did not influence Go/No-go performance.

Keywords: Go/No-go; N2 ERP; UPPS-P; addiction; decision-making; delay discounting; emotion; impulsivity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
ERP waveform across groups (HC: Healthy Controls, PG: Pathological gamblers, CDI: Cocaine-dependent individuals) at FCz, time-locked to the Go stimulus (left panel), and the No-go stimulus (middle panel). The right panel displays the No-go > Go N2 difference (the difference in N2 amplitudes between Go and No-go stimuli) for the three groups. The marks indicate the time frames used for the computation of the No-go > Go N2 difference.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Topographical localization of the cortical areas identified to significantly correlate with No-go > Go N2 difference scores in the whole sample of participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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