It has been found that developing an alcohol use disorder is approximately 50% heritable. Meaning that having a related family member with an alcohol use disorder puts you at risk for developing a substance use disorder. Families with a history of substance use disorder often show greater negative emotionality than those without. This suggests that those with a family history of substance show a predisposition to altered emotional reactivity to negative or difficult situations. The study explores whether family history positive young adults differ from a negative young adult on neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal and emotional reactivity using an emotion regulation task with negative and neural imagery.
This study consisted of 75 participants all between the ages of 18-22, who consumed alcohol at least once, were MRI-eligible, and scored greater than or equal to a 7 on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test. Some exclusions were being treated for a psychiatric disorder, seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder, and if they were regularly using tobacco. Emotion regulation tasks, trait emotion regulation, family history of harmful alcohol use, lifetime psychiatric diagnoses, and demographic information were all measured throughout this study.
The findings showed that young adults without or with a family history but without current harmful patterns of substance use engage in cognitive reappraisal at similar rates. Little evidence was suggested by the imaging data for differences in neural activation by family history group at the whole brain level. One cluster located in the right middle frontal gyrus did differ in activation. This shows that genetic risk for substance use disorder does not necessarily result in diminished cognitive reappraisal ability.
Takeaway: Individuals with or without a family history, without current harmful patterns of substance use engage in cognitive reappraisal at similar rates. Showing that genetic risk for substance use disorder does not necessarily result in diminished cognitive reappraisal ability.