This with The addicted the reward compromised reward employ R03 Imaging Science Track Award for Research Transition (I/START) application seeks to provide the PI the opportunity to enter as new investigator into the area of neuroimaging addiction and parenting. PI and her colleagues have presented a neurobiologically-informed reward-stress dysregulation model of parenting. Central to this model is the co-optation of reward neural circuits by addiction that leads to diminishment of the pleasure and reward of caregiving. However, few empirical studies have examined processes in parents with addiction. In parceling out the specific reward neural circuits that are by addiction, incentive delay tasks have been employed. These tasks have evidenced differential brain regions are recruited during the anticipation and receipt of reward. In the proposed study, we will the well-established - a monetary incentive delay task, as well as a novel infant incentive delay task, to probe the neural correlates of reward processes in non-social and social contexts in parents (mothers and fathers). The project will be actualized within the context of tobacco smoking and nicotine addiction. Therefore, this I/START R03 proposal will enable the PI to conduct a proof of concept study to examine variation in reward processes in parents with and without nicotine addiction. Consideration of both social and non-social rewards, as well as potential sex differences, is important to understand the extent of impairments in reward processes and how this may manifest in the pathophysiology of addiction. Findings will also be valuable in the design of parenting-specific tobacco cessation programs.
Reward affecting tobacco-smoking infant correlates important processes are critical to goal-directed behavior and may be compromised by addiction, thereby multiple levels of functioning, including caregiving behavior. This project will examine t he impact of and nicotine addiction to the neural correlates of reward processes measured in social (using face cues) and non-social (using monetary cues) contexts, and the extent to which these neural are associated with observed caregiving behavior will also be addressed. The findings will be inunderstanding both the role of reward processes in the pathophysiology of addiction and the development of novel cessation programs that specifically target parents.
