Nature Communications (Feb 2017)

Blunted ventral striatal responses to anticipated rewards foreshadow problematic drug use in novelty-seeking adolescents

  • Christian Büchel,
  • Jan Peters,
  • Tobias Banaschewski,
  • Arun L. W. Bokde,
  • Uli Bromberg,
  • Patricia J. Conrod,
  • Herta Flor,
  • Dimitri Papadopoulos,
  • Hugh Garavan,
  • Penny Gowland,
  • Andreas Heinz,
  • Henrik Walter,
  • Bernd Ittermann,
  • Karl Mann,
  • Jean-Luc Martinot,
  • Marie-Laure Paillère-Martinot,
  • Frauke Nees,
  • Tomas Paus,
  • Zdenka Pausova,
  • Luise Poustka,
  • Marcella Rietschel,
  • Trevor W. Robbins,
  • Michael N. Smolka,
  • Juergen Gallinat,
  • Gunter Schumann,
  • Brian Knutson,
  • the IMAGEN consortium

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14140
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Some adolescents seek novelty, but it is unknown whether the brain circuits underlying this behaviour can be used to predict later, problematic behaviour. Here, authors show that diminished ventral striatal and prefrontal activity in response to anticipated rewards at age 14 in these individuals predicts problematic drug use at age 16.