Drinking motives, personality traits and life stressors-identifying pathways to harmful alcohol use in adolescence using a panel network approach.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Models of alcohol use risk suggest that drinking motives represent the most proximal risk factors on which more distal factors converge. However, little is known about how distinct risk factors influence each other and alcohol use on different temporal scales (within a given moment versus over time). We aimed to estimate the dynamic associations of distal (personality and life stressors) and proximal (drinking motives) risk factors, and their relationship to alcohol use in adolescence and early adulthood using a novel graphical vector autoregressive (GVAR) panel network approach. DESIGN, SETTING AND CASES: We estimated panel networks on data from the IMAGEN study, a longitudinal European cohort study following adolescents across three waves (aged 16, 19 and 22 years). Our sample consisted of 1829 adolescents (51% females) who reported alcohol use on at least one assessment wave. MEASUREMENTS: Risk factors included personality traits (NEO-FFI: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness; SURPS: impulsivity and sensation-seeking), stressful life events (LEQ: sum scores of stressful life events), and drinking motives [drinking motives questionnaire (DMQ): social, enhancement, conformity, coping anxiety and coping depression]. We assessed alcohol use [alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT): quantity and frequency] and alcohol-related problems (AUDIT: related problems). FINDINGS: Within a given moment, social [partial correlation (pcor) = 0.17] and enhancement motives (pcor = 0.15) co-occurred most strongly with drinking quantity and frequency, while coping depression motives (pcor = 0.13), openness (pcor = 0.05) and impulsivity (pcor = 0.09) were related to alcohol-related problems. The temporal network showed no predictive associations between distal risk factors and drinking motives. Social motives (beta = 0.21), previous alcohol use (beta = 0.11) and openness (beta = 0.10) predicted alcohol-related problems over time (all P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Heavy and frequent alcohol use, along with social drinking motives, appear to be key targets for preventing the development of alcohol-related problems throughout late adolescence. We found no evidence for personality traits and life stressors predisposing towards distinct drinking motives over time.

Asymmetric effects of acute stress on cost and benefit learning.

BACKGROUND: Humans are continuously exposed to stressful challenges in everyday life. Such stressful events trigger a complex physiological reaction - the fight-or-flight response - that can hamper flexible decision-making and learning. Inspired by key neural and peripheral characteristics of the fight-or-flight response, here, we ask whether acute stress changes how humans learn about costs and benefits. METHODS: Healthy adults were randomly exposed to an acute stress (age mean=23.48, 21/40 female) or no-stress control (age mean=23.80, 22/40 female) condition, after which they completed a reinforcement learning task in which they minimize cost (physical effort) and maximize benefits (monetary rewards). During the task pupillometry data were collected. A computational model of cost-benefit reinforcement learning was employed to investigate the effect of acute stress on cost and benefit learning and decision-making. RESULTS: Acute stress improved learning to maximize rewards relative to minimizing physical effort (Condition-by-Trial Type interaction: F(1,78)= 6.53, p = 0.01, n2G= 0.04; reward > effort in stress condition: t(39) = 5.40, p < 0.01). Computational modelling revealed that asymmetric learning could be explained by changes in the learning rates of reward value and action cost [condition-by-learning rate (αR, αE) interaction: F(1,78)= 6.42, p = 0.01, n2G= 0.03; αE> αR in control condition: t(39) = -4.75, p < 0.001]. This process was associated with distinct alterations in pupil size fluctuations. Data and scripts are available (https://osf.io/ydv2q/). CONCLUSIONS: Here we demonstrate that acute stress is associated with asymmetric learning about reward value versus action cost, thereby providing new insights into learning strategies under acute stress, which, depending on the context, may be maladaptive or beneficial. Our pupillometry and physiological results tentatively link asymmetric cost and benefit learning to stress-related changes in catecholamine activity.