Research has shown that college students are more likely to drink alcohol along with binge drink than high school student and same aged young adults not in college. The current study looks at standard binge drinkers (sBinge), extreme binge drinkers (eBinge), standard and extreme binge drinkers who also use marijuana, and a control group to assess behavioral inhibition and reward processing.
To classify the sBinge/eBinge group, participants experienced 2+ episodes in the previous 30 days. The combined substance use group had to meet the previous criteria along with having 4+ episodes of marijuana use. The control group had no history of marijuana use or binge alcohol use. The sample included 221 freshman and sophomore with 40 controls, 62 sBinge, 59 eBinge, 35 marijuana +sBinge, and 25 marijuana +eBinge. The Stop Signal Task was a test to assess behavioral inhibition by using a simulation of stop and go trials. Participants were asked to withhold responding when given the stop signal. The Monetary Incentive Delay Task was used to assess reward processing. This simulation involved gain/loss scenarios and asked participants to respond to targets of this gain and loss. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study the neural activation on these two simulations.
Results showed the marijuana +sBinge group binged less than the eBinge and as expected, the combined substance use groups showed higher marijuana use. Results also showed tobacco use was lowest for the control group and higher for the two combined substance use groups. The tests showed there were no significant differences between groups at a whole-brain level or in specific regions. It was also discovered there were no behavioral performance differences between groups on the fMRI test. These findings show there are no major brain activity differences on reward and inhibitory tasks among those who engage in different binge drinking and with or without marijuana co-use.
Take Away: The current study looks at standard binge drinkers (sBinge), extreme binge drinkers (eBinge), standard and extreme binge drinkers who also use marijuana, and a control group to assess behavioral inhibition and reward processing. The sample included 221 freshman and sophomores with 40 controls, 62 sBinge, 59 eBinge, 35 marijuana +sBinge, and 25 marijuana +eBinge. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study the neural activation on two simulations. The tests showed there were no significant differences between groups at a whole-brain level or in specific regions. These findings show there are no major brain activity differences on reward and inhibitory tasks among those who engage in different binge drinking and with or without marijuana co-use.