A new study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions has revealed significant insights into the neurocognitive mechanisms behind both substance and non-substance addictive behaviors.
Conducted by an international team of researchers from Australia, the UK, and the US, this six-month longitudinal study provides a unique look into the predictive power of various neurocognitive functions in explaining addictive behaviors such as problematic alcohol use, addictive eating, pornography consumption, and internet use. The research aims to uncover how cognitive control and reward-related functions may contribute to addiction, and whether these mechanisms differ between substance and non-substance addictions.
In the study, the researchers followed a group of 294 participants, primarily young Australians with an average age of 24.8 years, over a six-month period. Participants were assessed using a series of online neurocognitive tasks and surveys designed to evaluate various addictive behaviors and their neurocognitive predictors. The study focused on problematic alcohol use, addictive eating (AE), problematic pornography use (PPU), and problematic internet use (PUI).
Key Findings
- One of the most striking findings was that baseline neurocognitive measures did not predict the severity of addictive eating or internet use at the six-month mark. However, the study did identify specific neurocognitive functions that predicted non-substance addictive behaviors over shorter periods. For instance, poorer performance monitoring—a key cognitive control function—predicted higher levels of addictive eating after three months. In addition, reward-related attentional capture, which reflects how strongly an individual is drawn to rewarding cues, was associated with higher levels of addictive eating after six months. The study also found that less risk-taking under uncertainty predicted higher problematic internet use after three months, suggesting a distinct neurocognitive mechanism at play in PUI compared to other forms of addiction.
- One notable finding was that delay discounting—how much a person devalues rewards over time—predicted higher levels of problematic pornography use at six months. This finding is somewhat counterintuitive, as previous research has typically linked steeper delay discounting with substance-related addictions. Interestingly, none of the neurocognitive variables studied were found to predict problematic alcohol use, raising questions about whether substance and non-substance addictions share the same underlying neurocognitive mechanisms.
The study also emphasizes the need for further research to replicate these findings, particularly in more clinically severe populations. Most participants in this study exhibited low to moderate levels of addictive behavior, which may limit the generalizability of the results to individuals with more severe addictions. However, the researchers believe that the study provides important groundwork for understanding the role of neurocognitive functions in non-substance addictions, an area that has received relatively little attention in the past.
For more detailed information, you can access the full article through the following link (clearnet).