Adolescent Substance Use Is Associated With Altered Brain Response During Processing of Negative Emotional Stimuli

Substance misuse is often associated with emotional dysregulation. Understanding the neurobiology of emotional responsivity and regulation as it relates to substance use in adolescence may be beneficial for preventing future use.

The present study used a community sample, ages 11-21 years old (N = 130, M_age = 17), to investigate the effects of alcohol and marijuana use on emotional reactivity and regulation using an Emotional Go-NoGo task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. The task consisted of three conditions, where target (Go) stimuli were either happy, scared, or calm faces. Self-report lifetime (and past-90-day) drinking and marijuana use days were provided at all visits.

Substance use was not differentially related to task performance based on condition. Whole-brain linear mixed-effects analyses (controlling for age and sex) found that more lifetime drinking occasions was associated with greater neural emotional processing (Go trials) in the right middle cingulate cortex during scared versus calm conditions. In addition, more marijuana use occasions were associated with less neural emotional processing during scared versus calm conditions in the right middle cingulate cortex and right middle and inferior frontal gyri. Substance use was not associated with brain activation during inhibition (NoGo trials).

These findings demonstrate that substance use-related alterations in brain circuitry are important for attention allocation and the integration of emotional processing and motor response when viewing negative emotional stimuli.