[Abstract Title]. - Society for Neuroscience

Employment (full or part-time); B.B. Averbeck, UCL Institute of Neurology, A. Employment
(full or part-time); Wellcome Project Grant 082535/Z/07/Z, B. Research Grant (principal
investigator, collaborator or consultant and pending grants as well as grants already received).
Poster
289. Human Decision Making
Time: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Program#/Poster#: 289.13/RR49
Topic: F.01.g. Decision making and reasoning
Support: NIDA R01 DA022549
R01 DA11779
Title: Decision-making and executive control deficits in substance-dependent individuals: a
comparison of alcohol, cocaine, and methamphetamine, and of men and women
Authors: *E. A. A. VAN DER PLAS 1 , E. A. CRONE 2 , W. VAN DEN WILDENBERG 3 , D.
TRANEL 1 , A. BECHARA 4 ;
1 Dept. of Neurol., Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, IA; 2 Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Leiden, Leiden,
Netherlands; 3 Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands; 4 Brain and
Creativity Inst. and Dept. of Psychology, USC, Los Angeles, CA
Abstract: Substance dependence is associated with executive function deficits, but the nature of
these defects has not been fully clarified. In the study reported here, we compared patterns of
performance of alcohol- (n = 33; 18 women), cocaine- (n= 27; 14 women) and
methamphetamine-dependent individuals (n= 38; 25 women) with sex-matched healthy
comparisons (n= 36; 17 women) in different executive domains, including decision-making,
working memory, cognitive flexibility, and response inhibition (capacities which may be
subserved by different regions in the prefrontal cortex). Based on previous work, we
hypothesized that cocaine and methamphetamine abuse, but not alcohol abuse, would result in
deficits in these domains of executive functioning. In addition, we explored the possibility that
deficits in decision-making in substance addicted men and women may be more severe for
women. Age and years of education were entered as covariates in all analyses. Cocaine- and
methamphetamine-dependent individuals were indeed found to be impaired in decision-making
as measured with the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). These two groups also performed significantly
lower than healthy comparison participants on the working memory task and the task-switching
paradigm, but not on the response inhibition measure. In line with earlier findings, the deficits in
working memory and cognitive flexibility were mild and did not change as a function of memory