Processing abnormalities in monetary outcome evaluations among male individuals with opioid use disorder: evidence from feedback-related negativity.

Background: Numerous studies have highlighted the pivotal role of alterations in the monetary reward system in the development and maintenance of substance use disorder (SUD). Although these alterations have been well documented in various forms of SUD, the electrophysiological mechanisms specific to opioid use disorder (OUD) remain underexplored. Understanding these mechanisms is critical for developing targeted interventions and advancing theories of addiction specific to opioid use.Objectives: To explore abnormalities in monetary reward outcome processing in males with OUD. We hypothesized that control individuals would show higher feedback-related negativity (FRN) to losses, unlike those in the OUD group, where FRN to losses and gains would not differ significantly.Methods: Fifty-seven participants (29 male individuals with OUD [heroin] and 28 male controls) were evaluated. A combination of the monetary incentive delay task (MIDT) and event-related potential (ERP) technology was used to investigate electrophysiological differences in monetary reward feedback processing between the OUD and healthy control groups.Results: We observed a significant interaction between group (control vs. OUD) and monetary outcome (loss vs. gain), indicated by p < .05 and η2p = 0.116. Specifically, control participants showed stronger negative FRN to losses than gains (p < .05), unlike the OUD group (p > .05).Conclusion: This study's FRN data indicate that males with OUD show altered processing of monetary rewards, marked by reduced sensitivity to loss. These findings offer electrophysiological insights into why males with OUD may pursue drugs despite potential economic downsides.

Attentional Bias Toward Cigarette-Related Cues in Male Smokers is Modulated by Cognitive Control Mechanisms.

Background: Many studies have found that smokers' attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues and cognitive control impairment significantly impacts their cigarette use. However, there is limited research on how the interaction between attentional bias and cognitive control may modulate smokers' cigarette-seeking behavior. Objectives: This study used a cigarette Stroop task to examine whether smokers with different attentional control ability had different levels of attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Methods: A total of 130 male smokers completed the Flanker task to measure their attentional control ability. The attentional control scores of all participants were ranked from low to high, with the top 27% placed in the high attentional control group and the bottom 27% in the low attentional control group. Subsequently, both groups completed the cigarette Stroop task to measure their attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Results: Smokers with low attentional control responded more slowly to cigarette-related cues than to neutral cues, while smokers with high attentional control showed no significant difference in their response time to either condition. Conclusions/Importance: Attentional control ability can regulate smokers' attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Smokers with low attentional control ability are more likely to have attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues, offering insights for targeted prevention of cigarette addiction.

The consequences of generative AI for online knowledge communities.

Generative artificial intelligence technologies, especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, are revolutionizing information acquisition and content production across a variety of domains. These technologies have a significant potential to impact participation and content production in online knowledge communities. We provide initial evidence of this, analyzing data from Stack Overflow and Reddit developer communities between October 2021 and March 2023, documenting ChatGPT's influence on user activity in the former. We observe significant declines in both website visits and question volumes at Stack Overflow, particularly around topics where ChatGPT excels. By contrast, activity in Reddit communities shows no evidence of decline, suggesting the importance of social fabric as a buffer against the community-degrading effects of LLMs. Finally, the decline in participation on Stack Overflow is found to be concentrated among newer users, indicating that more junior, less socially embedded users are particularly likely to exit.

Altered neural processing of social reward in male heroin abstainers.

Individuals who are addicted to drugs often face unfavourable social conditions and difficulty with social adaptation. Both may be closely related to impaired social cognitive ability. This study posits that social cognitive impairments likely arise from blunted social reward processing in drug users. This study aimed to explore the electrophysiological mechanism of social reward processing in people who abstain from using heroin (heroin abstainers). Twenty-eight male heroin abstainers and 27 matched controls completed the social incentive delay task. At the same time, their corresponding behaviour and electroencephalography data were recorded. The feedback-related negativity (FRN) elicited by positive outcomes was significantly more positive than that elicited by negative outcomes for the healthy controls. However, no significant difference in FRN was found between negative and positive outcomes among the heroin abstainers. There was no significant difference in P3 (a positive event-related potential component after FRN) elicited by negative and neutral outcomes in the heroin abstainers. Meanwhile, negative outcomes elicited greater P3 than neutral outcomes in the healthy controls. In addition, this study also found that withdrawal time was negatively correlated with the difference wave of FRN for the heroin abstainers. Heroin abstainers may be hyposensitive to the processing of social reward outcomes. In other words, they may have insufficient motivation to acquire social rewards. Abnormal social reward processing found in heroin abstainers can be improved with an increase in abstinence time. These results deepen our understanding of the social reward impairments associated with chronic drug use.