n = 6 males

no trick subjects apprised of drink type just before scan is this different from Urban? Is it different from Yoder?

how consistent is the “typical alcohol curve?” what can be done to control it?

compare to Urban who got 12% change in BP in VS in 11 males.

n = 11 males; 10 females, analyzed separately

design issues: no baseline – what happens if DA goes DOWN with placebo – is this still a valid comparison? a valid interpretation? how do we know they got to steady state? is that necessary for their analysis? why might DA go down with ‘placebo’ drink is 3 drinks-worth; forced drinking in 5-10 minutes? aversive? differences are masked by vodka smell – will this induce negative reward-prediction error?

DA release related to frequency of max-drinking day? what does this mean? do men differ from women because they are demographically different?

blinded? expectations? order effects? (need sham scan)

cue (visual and OLFACTORY) n = 8 males

bolus study order effects? why? can it be avoided? not self admin is iv alcohol like drinking? look at behavioral self reports

Conclusions- I Data conform to observations of dopaminergic function in reward prediction. Dopamine’s coding of expectation may be relevant to alcoholism (see Lapish, Seaman, & Chandler, ACER). No CS CS unexpected reward predicted reward absence of predicted reward from: Schultz, Dayan, & Montague, 1997, Science.

is the Yoder design really analogous to the Schulz experiment in monkeys? Don’t we need prior conditioning? What is the author’s answer to this?** would like to know if anyone’s BP went wrong way (DA down) in Urban study – if so, it would agree with Yoder. BAC in Boileau study did not correlate with  BP (agrees with Urban -- claimed it didn’t correlate with) **Yoder et al: probably claim that prior drinking exposure IS conditioning. So when they see and hear alcohol cues – they expect to get reward. Consider figure 3. Subjects said: “It was clear I was about to get drunk.”

Yoder: SHAS and AUDIT scores NOT correlated with  BP Boileau: SHAS scores did not correlate with  BP impulsiveness predicted BP change in VS