Project Details
Projekt
FOR 1617: Learning and Habitisation as Predictors of the Development and Maintenance of Alcoholism
Subject Area
Medicine
Term
from 2012 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 186318919
Alcohol dependence is characterised by failures of choice. People drink despite severe negative consequences; other pleasures are hardly rewarding to them. A crucial unanswered question is the genesis of such choice anomalies. The question we wish to address in this work is the role learning mechanisms per se play in the aetiology of alcohol dependence. Our approach will rest on computational characterisations of learning mechanisms that have been highly successful in teasing apart separate neurobiological contributions by structures thought to be involved in the development and maintenance of addiction. At a first level, we will combine multimodal imaging techniques with computational measurements of behavioural changes consequent on rewards and punishments. We will assess the acquisition of Pavlovian values for stimuli, the effects of Pavlovian predictions on other types of choices and the habitisation of behaviour. The multimodal imaging techniques will allow both the localisation and neurochemical identification of learning mechanisms in addictive behaviours. At a second level, we acknowledge the abstract nature of reinforcement learning techniques. Thus we compare learning mechanisms in scenarios involving stimuli that are either relevant or irrelevant to the addictive behaviour. This involves learning about cues typically predictive of drugs and learning in the presence of the drug. Our long-term aim is to further improve treatment and prevention of alcohol dependence. Three factors will ensure maximal clinical impact. First, we examine these associations at a neurobiological and behavioural level in prospective investigations of (1) a representative at-risk population of young adults and (2) in a group of alcohol-dependent patients, both in a cross-sectional manner and in a longitudinal design aiming at the prediction of the emergence and recurrence of addictive behaviour. Second, based on a comprehensive cross-sectional and longitudinal neuropsychological and psychopathological characterisation of subjects/patients, we will link the neurobiological findings on learning mechanisms to specific cognitive, affective and behavioural dysfunctions and learning under the influence of alcohol. Third, all our work will be flanked by multivariate pattern analyses, which may help to refine both patient profiles for therapeutic interventions and neurobiological and neurochemical findings.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Projects
- Acute alcohol and nicotine effects on reward-dependent learning and habitization in healthy young adults (Applicant Zimmermann, Ulrich )
- Dysfunctional interaction of dopamine and glutamate as a predictor for the development of alcohol use disorders (AUD) (Applicant Bermpohl, Felix )
- Imaging genetics and epigenetics in alcohol use disorder (Applicants Friedel, Eva ; Walter, Henrik )
- Learning and decision-making as predictors for the development of alcohol use disorders (Applicants Heinz, Andreas ; Smolka, Michael )
- Learning and decision making as predictors of treatment outcome in alcohol use disorder (Applicants Heinz, Andreas ; Zimmermann, Ulrich )
- Modelling Learning in Alcohol Use Disorders: Moderators and Multivariate Risk Profiles (Applicants Rapp, Michael ; Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina ; Schad, Daniel )
- Multivoxel pattern analysis of functional brain imaging data for the prediction of the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorders (Applicants Schmack, Katharina ; Sterzer, Ph.D., Philipp )
- Neuronal effects of stress and modulation of extinction learning in alcohol use disorder (NeuroModel) (Applicant Schlagenhauf, Florian )
- Z-Project: Coordination and Administration, Sampling, Assessment, Data Integration and Analysis (Applicants Heinz, Andreas ; Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich )
Spokesperson
Professor Dr. Andreas Heinz
