ReviewPsychopharmacology2012
Reversal learning as a measure of impulsive and compulsive behavior in addictions.
Review in Psychopharmacology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 182 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
182 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 298 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review on the Influences of Neurotoxicological Xenobiotic Compounds on Inhibitory Control.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2019Pooled it
- A Preliminary Study of Smoking Abstinence Effects on Acquisition and Reversal Learning in a Probabilistic Learning Task.Substance use & misuse · 2026Trial
- The role of Iowa gambling task performance in response to citalopram treatment for cocaine use disorder.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Neural Signatures of Cognitive Flexibility and Reward Sensitivity Following Nicotinic Receptor Stimulation in Dependent Smokers: A Randomized Trial.JAMA psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Behavioral and Neural Signatures of Reduced Updating of Alternative Options in Alcohol-Dependent Patients during Flexible Decision-Making.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2016Trial
- Abnormal modulation of reward versus punishment learning by a dopamine D2-receptor antagonist in pathological gamblers.Psychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- Frontal tDCS reduces alcohol relapse rates by increasing connections from left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to addiction networks.Brain stimulationTrial
- Spontaneous emergence of context-dependent statistical learning in humans and neural networks.iScience · 2026Article
- Dissociating volatility and stochasticity reveals transdiagnostic computational signatures of psychopathology.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Early-Stage Corticostriatal Hyperactivity Impairs Cognitive Flexibility Alongside Striatal Cholinergic Dysfunction in an Alzheimer's Disease Model.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The development of FEDUPP: feeding experimentation device users processing package to assess learning and cognitive flexibility.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Male bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) are more active and behaviourally flexible than workers.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Neural correlates of risky monetary decision-making impacting others.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- The role of impulsivity in injection-related risk behaviours among people who inject drugs in Montreal, Canada.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- When the Mind Cannot Shift: Cognitive Flexibility Impairments in Methamphetamine-Dependent Individuals.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Combined Chronic Oral Methylphenidate and Fluoxetine Decreases D2R Levels in the Caudate Putamen and Nucleus Accumbens.Neurochemical research · 2025Article
- Chronic Ethanol Exposure Produces Persistent Impairment in Cognitive Flexibility and Decision Signals in the Striatum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Network state dynamics underpin basal craving in a transdiagnostic population.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
122 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundOur ability to measure the cognitive components of complex decision-making across species has greatly facilitated our understanding of its neurobiological mechanisms. One task in particular, reversal learning, has proven valuable in assessing the inhibitory processes that are central to executive control. Reversal learning measures the ability to actively suppress reward-related responding and to disengage from ongoing behavior, phenomena that are biologically and descriptively related to impulsivity and compulsivity. Consequently, reversal learning could index vulnerability for disorders characterized by impulsivity such as proclivity for initial substance abuse as well as the compulsive aspects of dependence.
objectiveThough we describe common variants and similar tasks, we pay particular attention to discrimination reversal learning, its supporting neural circuitry, neuropharmacology and genetic determinants. We also review the utility of this task in measuring impulsivity and compulsivity in addictions.
methodsWe restrict our review to instrumental, reward-related reversal learning studies as they are most germane to addiction.
conclusionThe research reviewed here suggests that discrimination reversal learning may be used as a diagnostic tool for investigating the neural mechanisms that mediate impulsive and compulsive aspects of pathological reward-seeking and -taking behaviors. Two interrelated mechanisms are posited for the neuroadaptations in addiction that often translate to poor reversal learning: frontocorticostriatal circuitry dysregulation and poor dopamine (D2 receptor) modulation of this circuitry. These data suggest new approaches to targeting inhibitory control mechanisms in addictions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.