Decomposing the Late Positive Potential to Cannabis Cues in Regular Cannabis Users: A Temporal-spatial Principal Component Analysis

Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is increasing in the United States, yet, specific neural mechanisms of CUD are not well understood. Disordered substance use is characterized by heightened drug cue incentive salience, which can be measured using the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) evoked by motivationally significant stimuli. The drug cue LPP is typically quantified by averaging the slow wave's scalp-recorded amplitude across its entire time course, which may obscure distinct underlying factors with differential predictive validity; however, no study to date has examined this possibility. In a sample of 105 cannabis users, temporo-spatial Principal Component Analysis was used to decompose cannabis cue modulation of the LPP into its underlying factors. Acute stress was also inducted to allow for identification of specific cannabis LPP factors sensitive to stress. Factor associations with CUD severity were also explored. Eight factors showed significantly increased amplitudes to cannabis images relative to neutral images. These factors spanned early (~372 ms), middle (~824 ms), and late (>1000 ms) windows across frontal, central, and parietal-occipital sites. CUD phenotype individual differences were primarily associated with frontal, middle/late latency factor amplitudes. Acute stress effects were limited to one early central and one late frontal factor. Taken together, results suggest that the cannabis LPP can be decomposed into distinct, temporal-spatial factors with differential responsivity to acute stress and CUD phenotype variability. Future individual difference studies examining drug cue modulation of the LPP should consider (1) frontalcentral poolings in addition to conventional central-parietal sites, and (2) later LPP time windows.