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Abstinence from Substance Use & The Value of Control
Elle M Giovanni1,2,3, Mimi Liljeholm1,2,3
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|July 14, 2025
Summary
Substance use impacts the desire for control in decision-making. Psychostimulant abstinence specifically influences the preference for controllable environments, suggesting a link to the brain's reward system.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Behavioral Economics
- Psychology
Background:
- Substance use disorders are characterized by loss of control over consumption.
- Limited research explores how substance use affects the perceived value of agency in motivated behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how substance use influences the preference for controllable environments in motivated decision-making.
- To assess the impact of abstinence duration and recency of use on agency valuation across different substance classes.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a hierarchical gambling task to measure preference for control.
- Combined task data with cross-sectional substance use surveys.
- Employed computational cognitive modeling to analyze behavioral data.
Main Results:
- Psychostimulant abstinence duration significantly modulated the preference for control, independent of payoff maximization.
- For alcohol use, recency of consumption predicted a preference for varied outcomes, irrespective of control.
- No significant effects of abstinence were observed for sedative use.
Conclusions:
- Selective effects of psychostimulant use on agency valuation suggest a role for the dopaminergic system.
- Findings highlight distinct impacts of different substance classes on the fundamental value of control.
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