Naltrexone differentially modulates the neural correlates of motor impulse control in abstinent alcohol-dependent and poly-substance dependent individuals
File(s)Nestor_et_al-2019-European_Journal_of_Neuroscience.pdf (590.15 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Identifying key neural substrates in addiction disorders for targeted drug development remains a major challenge for clinical neuroscience. One emerging target is the opioid system, where substance‐dependent populations demonstrate prefrontal opioid dysregulation that predicts impulsivity and relapse. This may suggest that disturbances to the prefrontal opioid system could confer a risk for relapse in addiction due to weakened “top‐down” control over impulsive behaviour. Naltrexone is currently licensed for alcohol dependence and is also used clinically for impulse control disorders. Using a go/no‐go (GNG) task we examined the effects of acute naltrexone on the neural correlates of successful motor impulse control in abstinent alcoholics (AUD), abstinent poly substance‐dependent (poly‐SUD) individuals, and controls during a randomized double blind placebo controlled fMRI study. In the absence of any differences on GNG task performance, the AUD group showed a significantly greater BOLD response compared to the control group in lateral and medial prefrontal regions during both placebo and naltrexone treatments; effects that were positively correlated with alcohol abstinence. There was also a dissociation in the positive modulating effects of naltrexone in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior insula cortex (AIC) of the AUD and poly‐SUD groups respectively. Self‐reported trait impulsivity in the poly‐SUD group also predicted the effect of naltrexone in the AIC. These results suggest that acute naltrexone differentially amplifies neural responses within two distinct regions of a salience network during successful motor impulse control in abstinent AUD and poly‐SUD groups, which are predicted by trait impulsivity in the poly‐SUD group.
Date Issued
2019-08
Date Acceptance
2018-09-21
ISSN
0953-816X
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
2311
End Page
2321
Journal / Book Title
European Journal of Neuroscience
Volume
50
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Source Database
crossref
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ejn.14262
Grant Number
G1000018
Subjects
addiction
functional MRI
impulsivity
naltrexone
ICCAM Consortium
Neurology & Neurosurgery
1109 Neurosciences
1702 Cognitive Sciences
1701 Psychology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-11-06