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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Brain Imaging Methods
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1462157

Task-switching mechanisms under methamphetamine cravings: Sex differences in cued and voluntary task-switching

Provisionally accepted
Huan Jiang Huan Jiang 1*Binjie Yang Binjie Yang 1Hanzhi Huang Hanzhi Huang 1栋 赵 栋 赵 2Huiling Li Huiling Li 3*Shengyi Jin Shengyi Jin 4*Qiang Zhou Qiang Zhou 1,5*
  • 1 Department of psychology, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
  • 2 Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, King's College London, London, England, United Kingdom
  • 3 Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
  • 4 Wenzhou Ouhai District Anti-drug Committee Office, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
  • 5 Department of Psychiatry, Lishui Second People's Hospital, Lishui, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study explored the effects of task-switching type and sex on the task-switching ability of methamphetamine abstainers, as well as the differences in brain mechanisms under drug cravings under drug cravings using near-infrared spectroscopy. Cravinginducing videos were used to arouse 20 methamphetamine abstainers (including 10 men), whose switching ability was then assessed using voluntary and cued taskswitching exercises. During task-switching under methamphetamine cravings, the activation of the premotor cortex (PMC), supplementary motor area (SMA), frontal eye field (FEF), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in women was significantly stronger than in men, while the activation of FEF in men was significantly stronger than in women. Voluntary task-switching induced stronger FEF activation than cued task-switching. During the latter, women exhibited stronger activation in the anterior prefrontal cortex(aPFC) than men. Both men and women showed brain lateralization during task-switching under methamphetamine cravings. Men tended to adopt proactive control and use a top-down dominant strategy to start a new task. Women, however, tend to use a bottom-up strategy focusing on inhibiting old tasks and emotional switching. Moreover, in cued task-switching, the result shows women paid more attention to emotional processing than did men, which suggests that different task-switching training programs should be developed according to sex.

    Keywords: Methamphetamine, drug cravings, sex differences, task-switching, Brain mechanisms

    Received: 09 Jul 2024; Accepted: 09 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Jiang, Yang, Huang, 赵, Li, Jin and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Huan Jiang, Department of psychology, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
    Huiling Li, Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China
    Shengyi Jin, Wenzhou Ouhai District Anti-drug Committee Office, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
    Qiang Zhou, Department of psychology, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China

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