Exploratory study of associations between monetary reward anticipation brain responses and mu-opioid signalling in alcohol dependence, gambling disorder and healthy controls

Samuel Turton; Louise M Paterson; James Fm Myers; Inge Mick; Chen-Chia Lan; John McGonigle; Henrietta Bowden-Jones; Luke Clark; David J Nutt; Anne R Lingford-Hughes

doi:10.1016/j.ynirp.2024.100211

Exploratory study of associations between monetary reward anticipation brain responses and mu-opioid signalling in alcohol dependence, gambling disorder and healthy controls

Neuroimage Rep. 2024 Sep;4(3):100211. doi: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2024.100211.

Authors

Samuel Turton^{1

2}, Louise M Paterson¹, James Fm Myers¹, Inge Mick³, Chen-Chia Lan^{1

4}, John McGonigle^{1

5}, Henrietta Bowden-Jones^{6

7

8}, Luke Clark^{9

10}, David J Nutt¹, Anne R Lingford-Hughes¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Psychiatry, Imperial College London, London, UK.
² Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, London UK.
³ Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric University Clinic of Charité at St. Hedwig Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung Taiwan.
⁵ Perspectum Ltd, Oxford, UK.
⁶ National Problem Gambling Clinic, London UK.
⁷ Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL, London UK.
⁸ Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
⁹ Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada.
¹⁰ Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada.

Abstract

Alcohol dependence (AD) and gambling disorder (GD) are common addiction disorders with significant physical and mental health consequences. AD and GD are associated with dysregulated responses to reward which could be due to a common mechanism of dysregulated endogenous opioid signalling. We explored associations between reward anticipation responses, using the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task, and mu-opioid receptor (MOR) availability and endogenous opioid release capacity using [¹¹C]carfentanil positron emission tomography (PET), in 13 AD, 15 GD and 14 heathy control (HC) participants. We also examined differences in MID task reward anticipation responses between AD, GD and HC participants. These were secondary exploratory analysis of data collected to examine differences in MOR PET in addiction. We did not find significant differences in MID win > neutral anticipation BOLD responses compared between participant groups in a priori ROIs (ventral striatum, putamen, caudate) or whole brain analyses. We found no significant correlations between MID win > neutral anticipation BOLD responses and [¹¹C]carfentanil PET measures, except for limited negative correlations between putamen MOR availability and MID win > neutral anticipation BOLD response in AD participants. Previous research has suggested a limited role of endogenous opioid signalling on MID task reward anticipation responses in AD and HCs as these responses are not modulated by opioid receptor blockade and this may explain our lack of significant correlations in HC and AD or GD participants. Our results, particularly the lack of differences in MID win > neutral anticipation BOLD responses across participants groups, may be limited due to only including AD or GD participants who are abstinent or in active treatment.