Risky decision-making in abstinent heroin addicts: An erp study

Heroin addiction is usually associated with decision-making deficits that they are more likely to accept risk. Understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying risky decision-making in heroin addicts therefore is important not only for interpreting the behavioral or functional impairments for heroin addicts, but also for assessing the treatment outcome in abstinent heroin addicts (AHA). The aim of this study is to investigate the risky decision making in AHA, compared with healthy controls (HC), in terms of their electrophysiological distortions during the performance of gambling tasks. In our study, the gambling task was conducted, involving the high-risk and low-risk choices and then a corresponding positive or negative feedback. During the tasks, 64-channel electroencephalographic (EEG) signals were recorded in 24 AHA subjects and 23 matched HC subjects. The behavioral results showed that AHA preferred to select the high-risk choice, whereas HC did not have this preference. Moreover, the differences of the event related potential (ERP) generated by AHA and HC were examined, particularly the changes in P300 which related to the cognitive and attentional status. Our ERP results showed a significant suppression of P300 intensity in AHA induced by the negative feedback, but not for the positive feedback. This finding implied that the cognitive process during decision-making in AHA might be impaired, with hyposensitivity to punishment.