Imprecise action selection in substance use disorder: Evidence for active learning impairments when solving the...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Computational Psychiatry
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Substance use disorders (SUDs) represent a significant public health concern.
• Understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind persistent maladaptive choices in SUDs is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate decision-making processes in individuals with SUDs compared to healthy controls using computational modeling.
• To identify specific learning and choice selection deficits associated with SUDs.

Main Methods:

• Employed active inference modeling, multiple regression, and hierarchical Bayesian analyses.
• Utilized a gambling task to assess choice resolution under uncertainty in 147 individuals with SUDs and 54 healthy controls.
• Compared a propensity-matched subset for robustness.

Main Results:

• Individuals with SUDs demonstrated poorer task performance and less precise action selection.
• SUDs exhibited a lower learning rate from losses and a higher learning rate from gains.
• No significant differences were found in goal-directed information seeking between groups.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest inconsistent behavioral responses to positive outcomes and a tendency to attribute negative outcomes to chance in SUDs.
• Individuals with SUDs struggle to maintain consistent behavioral strategies despite evidence.
• These learning impairments may explain difficulties in behavioral adjustment and decision-making during and after treatment.