Reduced Sensitivity to Negative Feedback May Lead to Risky Decision-Making in Amphetamine Users

In Taiwan, amphetamines are the main drug of abuse. While drug abuse is often related to individual risky decision-making, how this relates to underlying neural mechanisms in amphetamine abusers remains unclear. The current study was carried out to help better understand this. A Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was used to examine individual risky decision-making in conjunction with event-related potential (ERP) recording and presentation of questionnaires relating to behavioural control. Compared with healthy controls, amphetamine users had a lower score on the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) scale and showed reduced amplitudes in feedback-related negativity (FRN) and error-related negativity (ERN) ERP components following negative feedback on the task. Amphetamine users were less sensitive to punitive or aversive stimuli. This reduced sensitivity might lead to a higher tendency for risky decision-making, with them less able to learn from mistakes and thus repeatedly engage in risky behaviours.