Competing Motivations: Proactive Response Inhibition Toward Addiction-Related Stimuli in Quitting-Motivated Individuals

We examined whether addiction-related cues impact proactive inhibition (the restraint of actions in preparation for stopping) in individuals who are motivated to quit gambling or cannabis use. In Study 1, treatment-seeking individuals with cannabis use disorder and matched controls performed a stop-signal task that required them to inhibit categorizing cannabis or neutral pictures, and within varying levels of stop-signal probability. In Study 2, two groups of individuals, who applied to a voluntary self-exclusion program toward gambling, performed the stop-task following relaxation or gambling craving induction, with results compared to non-gamblers. Study 1 showed that despite being less efficient in proactive inhibition, individuals with cannabis use disorder exhibited heightened proactive inhibition toward cannabis cues. In Study 2, proactive inhibition toward gambling cues was heightened in gamblers after craving, but the degree of proactive adjustment decreased as a function of induced changes in gambling-related motivation. Present findings demonstrate that exposure to addiction-related cues can modulate proactive inhibition in individuals who are motivated to restrict their addictive behaviors.