Summary: A new study found that training people to think about a particular future event can reduce impulsivity and improve decision-making. Using fMRI scans, the researchers showed that practicing future thoughts for episodes increases connectivity in key brain regions and less likely participants to choose immediate rewards over long-term benefits.
Previously linked to healthier choices, this technique could serve as a promising behavioral intervention for alcohol use disorders. Future research will explore how long these brain changes will change and whether they can enhance the outcome of addiction treatments.
Important facts
Future Thinking and Impulsivity: Training for future thoughts in episodes reduced impulsive decisions. Brain connection shift: fMRI scans showed increased connectivity in saliency networks linked to better decision-making.
Source: Virginia Tech
Learning to think more about certain future events appears to indicate potential as a treatment for alcohol use disorder by reducing impulsivity, improving decision-making, and treating alcohol use disorders, a new Virginia Tech study found.
This study involved 24 participants whose brains had been scanned both at rest and task-based fMRI, indicating that brain connections were altered by future thinking.
The study, recently published in Journal Brain Connectivity, was the last research led by the late Warren Bickel, professor and director of the Center for Addiction Recovery Research at VTC’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.
Bickel, who died of cancer in September, was a leading researcher in the field that uses “episode future thinking” (the ability to vividly imagine what could happen in your future) – addressing addiction.
“What we were trying to understand was how future thoughts in the episode work as a kind of therapeutic approach,” said Stephen Laconte, professor and corresponding author of the paper.
“What we found was that training people to think more about their future changed the degree to which they value immediate rewards for future people, and along with that we see related changes in connectivity in key regions of the brain.”
The Fralin Biomedical Research Institute study was the first to practice imagining a particular personal future event in the lab before participants returned to their thoughts during an MRI brain scan to identify changes in brain activity.
For example, you might think of the theme as “Once a year, we will open our first art gallery in Los Angeles.”
Part of alcohol use disorders is characterized in part by their ability to think clearly about the future and their tendency to make impulsive decisions. This phenomenon is called evaluating delayed rewards over delayed discounts or immediate rewards.
Previous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of future thinking in reducing delay discounts and promoting healthier choices, emerging as a potential behavioral intervention for substance use disorders.
Participants showed reduced impulsivity in decision making, making them easier with more challenging tasks when determining immediate and delayed rewards. At the same time, scientists noticed an increase in connections between multiple regions of the brain.
“We found that with delayed discount tasks, people with this functional connectivity can actually perform hard tasks faster,” says Laconte, who is also interim co-director at the Center for Addiction Recovery Research.
“What that means is that the future thinking of the episode is making tasks easier, or it’s freeing up brain resources and temporarily changing the delay discount. I don’t know which one yet.”
The study provides a baseline for future research, said Jeremy Meislowski, the first author of the paper.
“We see this as a fruitful opportunity to explore potential changes in brain connections by collecting data before and after the intervention,” says Myslowski, who worked on the research in Laconte’s lab. He has graduated ever since. “And when you perform work with actual alcohol consumption components, there’s something specific about your brain data.”
Further research is needed to determine how long behavioral and connection changes can be.
Laconte noted that the results closely reflect a 2020 study of brain connectivity in people who were given antidepressants for the first time.
Laconte and Bickel were longtime collaborators at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. Bickel was one of the first to recognize the importance of temporary future thinking in understanding substance use disorders and treatment.
About this neuroscience research news
Author: Lee Anne Kelly
Source: Virginia Tech
Contact: Leigh Anne Kelley – Virginia Tech
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
Warren Bickel et al. Brain connections
Abstract
Changes in connectivity following temporary future thinking in alcohol use disorders
Introduction: Recent addiction and obesity-related research suggests that Episode Future Thinking (EFT) serves as a promising intervention to promote healthy decision-making.
Data from pilot studies were used to investigate the acute neural effects of EFT in alcohol use disorders (AUD). Due to limitations on these data, we further used data from previously published functional MRI (fMRI) studies in which participants had not received an AUD intervention.
Methods: In a guided interview outside the scanner, we generated scenarios in participants (n = 24; median age = 37.3 years, median audit = 22.5) and generated future (EFT intervention, n = 15) or recent past (control episode thinking (CET) control intervention, n = 9).
We then performed both a rest state and a task-based (delay discount (DD)) fMRI. Seed-based analysis of resting state data was performed using default mode networks and prominent network nodes, as well as the hippocampus. The results led to a psychophysiological interaction analysis of the DD task.
Furthermore, data from a larger previously reported study were replicated and supported interpretations of key findings as a “no intervention” group of AUD participants (n = 50; median age = 43.3; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV) alcohol dependence score = 7).
Results: EFT, but not CET, participants showed statistically improved DD rates. This is a behavioral marker of addiction. A resting state analysis of the left hippocampus revealed differences in frontal pole connectivity. This direction of difference suggests that EFT may reduce the low connectivity relationship between these regions of AUD.
We also found differences in resting connectivity between the Salience network and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (R DLPFC), leading to discover differences in psychophysiological interactions of RLL DLPFCs during DD.
Furthermore, resting salience and DLPFC functional connectivity showed an inverse relationship to DD rate, whereas excessive connectivity between left and right DLPFCs reflects the slower reaction time during DD testing.
Discussion: These findings suggest that previously described benefits of EFTs, such as the improved DD replicated here, may be consistent with changes in neural connection patterns in AUD.
Changes in connectivity highlight the potential mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of EFTs in improving AUD decision-making. Understanding these neural effects may contribute to further development of targeted interventions for AUD and related disorders.
