Impaired error awareness and anterior cingulate cortex hypoactivity in chronic cannabis users - PubMed (original) (raw)

Impaired error awareness and anterior cingulate cortex hypoactivity in chronic cannabis users

Robert Hester et al. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2009 Oct.

Abstract

Drug abuse and other psychiatric conditions (eg, schizophrenia) have been associated with a diminished neural response to errors, particularly in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) thought critical to error processing. A diminished capacity for detecting errors has been linked to clinical symptoms including the loss of insight, delusions, and perseverative behavior. A total of 16 active chronic cannabis users and 16 control participants were administered a Go/No-go response inhibition task during event-related fMRI data collection. The task provides measures of inhibitory control and error awareness. Cannabis users' inhibitory control performance was equivalent to that of the control group, but the former showed a significant deficit in awareness of commission errors. Cannabis users showed a diminished capacity for monitoring their behavior that was associated with hypoactivity in the ACC and right insula. In addition, increased levels of hypoactivity in both the ACC and right insula regions were significantly correlated with error-awareness rates in the cannabis group (but not controls). These difficulties are consistent with earlier reports of hypoactivity in the neural systems underlying cognitive control and the monitoring of interoceptive awareness in chronic drug users, and highlight the potential relationship between cognitive dysfunction and behavioral deficits that have the potential to contribute to the maintenance of drug abuse.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. The Error Awareness Task

The EAT presents a serial stream of single colour words in congruent fonts, with the word presented for 900ms followed by a 600ms inter-stimulus interval. Participants were trained to respond to each of the words with a single ‘Go trial’ button press, and withhold this response when either of two different circumstances arose. The first was if the same word was presented on two consecutive trials (Repeat No-go), and the second was if the word and font of the word did not match (Stroop No-go). To indicate ‘error awareness’ participants were trained to press the go-trial button twice on the trial following any commission errors.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Regions of brain activity differentiating Aware from Unaware Errors

Bar graphs represent mean BOLD % signal change (relative to baseline) for each group during Aware and Unaware errors. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean. The MNI co-ordinates for each region are listed in the title and the brain slices shown represent the view at the relevant x, y or z-coordinate (e.g., coronal slices relate to the y-coordinate). Significant within-group comparisons for aware and unaware errors are indicated by the bar and asterisk notations.

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