Research reportNeural correlates of a Go/NoGo task with alcohol stimuli in light and heavy young drinkers

•Behaviorally, light drinkers made more correct responses than heavy drinkers.•Performance assessed with d-prime was better among light drinkers.•Heavy drinkers responded faster to trials following beer-cued NoGo trials.•Heavy drinkers elicited stronger activation in right DLPFC and anterior/mid cingulate, relative to light drinkers.•Relative to light drinkers, heavy drinkers elicited greater activity in the right anterior insula during beer-cued NoGo trials.

Inhibitory processes are highly relevant to behavioral control affecting decisions made daily. The Go/NoGo task is a common task used to tap basic inhibitory processes important in higher order executive functioning. The present study assessed neural correlates of response inhibition during performance of a Go/NoGo task in which NoGo signals or tests of inhibitory control consisted of images of beer bottles. Group comparisons were conducted between 21 heavy and 20 light drinkers, ranging in age from 18 to 22. Behaviorally, overall performance assessed with d-prime was significantly better among the lighter drinkers. On a neural level, the heavy drinkers showed significantly greater activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex and cingulate relative to the light drinkers during the NoGo trials. These regions are implicated in reflective or control processing of information. Further, heavy drinkers showed significantly greater activity in the insula relative to light drinkers during NoGo trials, a neural region implicated in habit circuitry and tied to cue induced urges and emotional memories of physical effects of drugs. These results suggest that the heavier drinkers may have experienced increased working memory demand and control efforts to withhold a response due to poorer inhibitory control from enhanced salience of alcohol cues on the beer NoGo trials, which also engaged insula mediated effects.