A neuroeconomic approach to the study of substance use: Risk and reward valuation following adolescent alcohol exposure

Alcohol remains the most commonly abused substance among adolescents. However, relatively little is known about the cognitive and neurobiological processes that may contribute to high rates of adolescent drinking and how alcohol use, in turn, may affect these processes. During adolescence, developing brain systems underlying cognitive, emotional, and social behaviors develop at different rates. This asynchronous maturation of intellectual and emotional skills and their underlying neural substrates may help explain age and individual differences in judgment, decision making, sensation seeking, and risk taking, which make adolescents vulnerable to developing alcohol abuse and dependence. In addition, it is becoming clear that the maturing adolescent brain remains vulnerable to durable effects of alcohol exposure and that its future functioning can be markedly affected by drinking patterns in the teenage years. The work described here seeks to characterize these effects by determining how adolescent alcohol exposure affects future decision-making processes, reward-based learning, and their underlying neural substrates.