| Sumario: | Decision-making is one of the cognitive domains in which drug users are commonly impaired. To our knowledge, few studies have investigated the underlying mechanism of risk-taking behavior among individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) using a computational approach. Ninety-six right-handed male participants (63 individuals with MUD who were currently abstinent and 33 healthy controls) were included in Experiment 1, and 94 right-handed male participants (63 individuals with MUD who were currently abstinent and 31 healthy controls) were included in Experiment 2. To investigate whether individuals with MUD exhibit different risk-taking behavior from healthy controls and understand the possible underlying psychological processes, we used the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) with and without methamphetamine-related pictures and the method of computational modeling. After individuals with MUD completed the BART, a 5-min video of methamphetamine use was displayed, and individuals with MUD then rated their subjective craving using a visual analogue scale. Individuals with MUD displayed higher risk-taking behavior than healthy controls when participants were exposed to methamphetamine-related pictures. The results of computational modeling revealed that the risk-taking propensity parameter was significantly higher in individuals with MUD than in healthy controls. The craving scores were positively correlated with the risk-taking propensity parameter and the updating coefficient when individuals with MUD were exposed to methamphetamine-related pictures. Higher risk taking in individuals with MUD could be explained by differences in the risk-taking propensity parameter, which reflects how participants evaluate the outcomes. These findings can be used to guide future work in targeting the evaluation process among people with MUD.
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