Bruce D. Bartholow - US grants

The proposed project will apply techniques developed in cognitive neuroscience to examine brain activities involved in the processing of expectancies (e.g., traits and stereotypes) and expectancy violations in person perception. Several theoretical models posit that expectancy- violating information receives different or more elaborative cognitive processing than expectancy-consistent information. Other models propose that processing of social information differs depending on its affective tone, or valence. Finally, research suggests that alcohol intoxication leads to working memory impairments that may create greater conflict in the processing of information that violates an established context, such as a social expectancy. Measures of neurophysiological activity associated with information processing, such as event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and event-related optical signal (EROS), have the potential to provide new perspectives on the manner in which information about people is processed, as well as the variables that may significantly influence this processing. In the proposed research, ERPs and EROS will be used to specify 1) the time course and the level of engagement of information processing operations related to expectancy violations and the valence of behavior, 2) potential differences in the processing of trait-based versus stereotype-based expectancy information, 3) potential effects of alcohol intoxication on the processing of expectancy violations, and 4) the cortical area(s) involved the processing of expectancy-relevant information.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol consumption leads to a number of behavioral problems, including increased risk of accidents, interpersonal conflict, and risky decision-making. Theory and research point to alcohol's effects on higher-level cognitive processes, as well as effects of the drug on regulation of emotion, as responsible for its behavioral effects. Recent research has shown that alcohol limits the ability to monitor ongoing performance and make adjustments when necessary, manifest as reduced amplitude of scalp-recorded brain potentials associated with the processing of performance errors (i.e., the error-related negativity, or ERN). The current explanation for this effect is that alcohol limits the extent to which errors are detected (i.e., a cognitive effect), leading drinkers to persist in maladaptive behaviors. The objective of the current project is to test the feasibility of a program of research aimed at understanding alcohol-related deficits in performance monitoring and adjustment, as well as other, related phenomena, in terms of the drug's interactive effects on both cognition and affect. Specifically, it is proposed that alcohol reduces the size of cortical error signals not because performance errors go unnoticed following alcohol consumption, but because alcohol reduces the negative affect typically associated with error commission. Two experiments are proposed to test the specific aims of the project, which include (1) testing the error-detection account of alcohol's effects on the ERN against an alternative, affect-modulation account; (2) testing the effects of alcohol on other aspects of performance monitoring reflected in different brain potentials, particularly the error positivity (Pe); (3) testing the effects of alcohol on affective reactions to errors and negative performance feedback; and (4) testing the effects of alcohol on behavioral adjustment as a combined function of impaired error processing and reduced negative affect. Participants in both experiments will be assigned to consume either an alcohol beverage or one of two control beverages prior to completion of a cognitive task requiring quick, forced-choice decisions. Electrophysiological indices of error monitoring and affective reactions will be assessed throughout the experiments using surface electrodes. The first experiment will be a conceptual replication of a recent study in which effects of alcohol on the ERN were demonstrated, but with the addition of a subjective performance accuracy measure accompanying each trial. The second experiment will involve a trial-and-error learning paradigm in which participants must learn appropriate stimulus responses via feedback received after every trial. These experiments together will provide convergent evidence related to the specific aims and overall objective of the project. The outcome of this project will have important implications for understanding why intoxicated individuals often engage and persist in maladaptive behaviors, which could suggest avenues for intervention. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(Public Law 111-5)."

This collaborative project outlines a series of studies investigating the role of individual differences in executive functions (EFs) in expression of implicit racial bias. Executive functions refer to higher-order control processes that regulate thought and action. Although an individual's performance on laboratory-based implicit bias tasks is typically interpreted as a straightforward manifestation of his/her underlying automatic bias, recent preliminary evidence suggests that performance on all such tasks implicatesexecutive control processes, such as the overriding of dominant or pre-potent responses. According to the team of researchers involved in this project, racial bias, as assessed by implicit bias tasks, is a complex construct jointly affected by automatic bias and individual differences in EF abilities. The research they will carry out seeks to vigorously test this emerging theoretical view by conducting a large-scale individual differences study of the relationship between EF abilities and expressions of racial bias. The aim of this research is threefold: to investigate the extent to which behavioral manifestations of race bias are associated with individual differences in related but separable EF abilities; to investigate several neurocognitive processes associated with cognitive control as mechanisms through which EF abilities affect expression of race bias; and to determine whether individual differences in EF abilities moderate the impact of manipulations that temporarily deplete executive functioning. The work will involve 5 collaborators and include nearly 500 research participants at three geographic locations. What sets this project apart theoretically from existing work is that rather than treating EF as a unitary ability, the current research adopts a multi-component view of EF that suggest it can be decomposed into correlated yet separable subcomponents, such as inhibition, updating, and shifting. By examining both behavioral and neurocognitive (ERP) indices of implicit bias, this project has the potential to provide the first-ever systematic and comprehensive analysis of the EF-bias relationship.

Project Summary: Alcohol consumption leads to a number of behavioral problems, including increased risk of accidents, interpersonal conflict, and risky decision-making, which account for significant health care costs in the U.S. annually. Recent research indicates that alcohol causes impairment of so-called executive cognitive functions (ECFs), and suggests that this impairment is the driving force behind alcohol-related changes in behavior. However, alcohol's effects on ECF, including whether particular aspects of ECF are more susceptible to alcohol-induced impairment than others, are not fully understood. In addition, there are wide individual differences in executive ability, but very little is known about how these baseline differences may moderate the acute effects of alcohol on ECF. Therefore, the long-term objective of this proposal is to increase understanding of alcohol's effects on ECF, including which aspects of ECF are most impaired by alcohol, how separable aspects of ECF relate to one another, and how these effects differ between individuals. To achieve this goal, a series of specific aims will be addressed using 3 experiments. These aims include determining alcohol's effects on three specific components of ECF (shifting, updating, and inhibition), testing whether alcohol-induced impairment of ECF differs on the ascending and descending limbs of the blood alcohol concentration curve, and the extent to which baseline differences in ECFs moderate the acute effects of alcohol. Finally, the three experiments are designed so as to permit an overarching meta-analytic integration using data from all of them, in order to test how the three components of ECF relate to one another and to performance on complex executive tasks. A design like this has never been used in any published study on the effects of alcohol. The outcome of this project will have important implications for understanding the cognitive impairment resulting from alcohol intoxication.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent data indicate that exposure to televised alcohol advertising among U.S. adolescents increased 71% from 2001-2009 (CAMY, 2010). Although research suggests an association between exposure to alcohol advertising and youth drinking (Anderson et al., 2009), causal effects for such relations have yet to be identified. The proposed work aims to investigate a potential causal mechanism for the effects of alcohol advertising and marketing on adolescents' alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors. The over-arching hypothesis advanced here is that alcohol advertising and marketing efforts affect basic motivational and attentional processes with known links to approach and consummatory behavior and related attitudes. We propose that, through changes in these basic processes, exposure to alcohol cues through advertising and marketing shapes alcohol-related attitudes and compels alcohol-seeking and use, and could influence the propensity for risk-taking behavior more generally. This general hypothesis will be investigated using a combined behavioral and psychophysiological approach in three sets of experiments. All proposed experiments will focus on university-enrolled adolescents aged 18-20. Experiments will focus on a common alcohol marketing strategy that might be particularly effective at targeting college students, known as developing a brand community, by affiliating the brand of alcohol with students' university through product displays and placement of ads in university sports broadcasts. This strategy taps into an in-group affiliation motive that could enhance the motivational significance of alcohol brands, resulting in stronger approach and consummatory behavior and alcohol-related attitudes. Experiment Set A will test the extent to which in-group-affiliated alcohol products (vs. nonaffiliated alcohol products) differentially engage motivational and attentional processes in the brain. Experiment Set B will extend the paradigm to a more naturalistic setting in which video ads is embedded in televised programming manipulated to represent in-group or neutral affiliations. Experiment Set C will investigate the consequences of alcohol video advertisement-induced changes in attention and motivational processes for risk-taking behavior. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Underage drinking, particularly by older adolescents, represents a significant public health concern for both the adolescent drinkers themselves and for those whom their drinking impacts. This research will increase understanding of this problem by investigating the ways in which alcohol advertising and marketing affects basic brain processes believed to influence alcohol- related attitudes, drinking behaviors and risk-taking.

Differential sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol, particularly reduced sedation-like effects and enhanced stimulation-like effects (here simplified as ?low sensitivity;? LS), is known to be a potent risk factor for alcohol abuse, dependence, and drinking-contingent adverse consequences. However, at present relatively little is known concerning the specific psychological mechanisms through which LS promotes problematic drinking. The research proposed here is aimed at testing a novel translational hypothesis, based in the incentive sensitization theory of addiction, linking LS with specific psychological and neurobiological processes that both promote craving and motivation for alcohol and facilitate heavy drinking. The proposed research will use a combination of laboratory-based measures to gauge attention to, motivation for, and incentive value of alcohol- related cues (alcohol cue-reactivity; ACR) and ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of ?real-world? drinking and related experiences. Participants will be young drinkers (ages 18-20 years) recruited from the community, permitting investigation of a novel, theory-driven model of risk for problematic drinking during a critical developmental period for alcohol involvement (emerging adulthood). Using a variety of recruitment channels, we will screen potential participants to obtain information about their level of alcohol sensitivity (as determined using validated questionnaires) and drinking patterns. A target sample of 420 emerging adults (70 males and 70 females in each of three sensitivity terciles) will be invited to participate in a laboratory session during which four tasks will be used to evaluate ACR: (1) a visual dot-probe detection task assessing involuntary capture of attention by alcohol cues; (2) an alcohol approach-avoidance task evaluating implicit approach bias elicited by alcohol cues; (3) amplitude of the P3 event-related potential elicited by alcohol cues, assessing incentive value for alcohol; and (4) an olfactory cue exposure task measuring self-reported craving for alcohol. Following this laboratory session, participants will begin a 21-day EMA period during which they will use a smartphone app to record alcohol cue exposure, alcohol craving, drinking behaviors, and adverse consequences of drinking in their natural environments. Participants will complete an online follow-up survey one year after the laboratory session. The research will permit us to (a) characterize how individual differences in alcohol sensitivity relate to neurobehavioral and self-report measures of incentive sensitization processes; (b) investigate how LS relates to drinking behavior, ACR, craving, and problems in young drinkers' natural environments; and (c) evaluate empirical associations among alcohol sensitivity, laboratory endophenotypes, ecologically assessed drinking experiences, and problematic drinking outcomes. This approach will produce a unique and rich dataset, findings from which will help fill critical gaps in extant knowledge about the etiology of LS-related risk for AUD.

PROJECT SUMMARY Not applicable for this submission. The summary has not changed from Parent R01.