Reduced neural encoding of utility prediction errors in cocaine addiction

Journal article

A. Konova, A. Ceceli, G. Horga, Scott J. Moeller, N. Alia-Klein, Rita Z. Goldstein
Neuron, 2023

Semantic Scholar DOI PubMedCentral PubMed

Cite

APA Click to copy
Konova, A., Ceceli, A., Horga, G., Moeller, S. J., Alia-Klein, N., & Goldstein, R. Z. (2023). Reduced neural encoding of utility prediction errors in cocaine addiction. Neuron.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Konova, A., A. Ceceli, G. Horga, Scott J. Moeller, N. Alia-Klein, and Rita Z. Goldstein. “Reduced Neural Encoding of Utility Prediction Errors in Cocaine Addiction.” Neuron (2023).

MLA Click to copy
Konova, A., et al. “Reduced Neural Encoding of Utility Prediction Errors in Cocaine Addiction.” Neuron, 2023.

BibTeX Click to copy

@article{a2023a,
  title = {Reduced neural encoding of utility prediction errors in cocaine addiction},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {Neuron},
  author = {Konova, A. and Ceceli, A. and Horga, G. and Moeller, Scott J. and Alia-Klein, N. and Goldstein, Rita Z.}
}

Abstract

Summary Influential accounts of addiction posit alterations in adaptive behavior driven by deficient dopaminergic prediction errors (PE) signaling the discrepancy between actual and expected reward. Dopamine neurons encode these error signals in subjective terms, calibrated by individual risk-preferences, as “utility” PEs. It remains unclear, however, whether people with drug addiction have PE deficits or their computational source. Here, using an analogous task to prior single-unit studies with known expectancies, we show that fMRI-measured PEs similarly reflect utility PEs. Relative to control participants, people with chronic cocaine addiction exhibit reduced utility PEs in the dopaminoceptive ventral striatum, with similar trends in orbitofrontal cortex. Dissecting this PE signal into its subcomponent terms attributed these reductions to weaker striatal responses to received reward/utility, while suppression of activity with reward expectation was unchanged. These findings support that addiction may fundamentally disrupt PE signaling and reveal an underappreciated role for perceived reward value in this mechanism.