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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Drug Alcohol Depend. 2023 Feb 3;244:109794. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109794

Figure 2: Sex differences in subjective and physiologic responses during fMRI and follow-up days of substance use.

Figure 2:

Mean craving, heart rate and anxiety ratings in response to neutral-relaxing (N), stress cue (S), and drug cue (D) imagery trials relative to baseline of each trial (imagery minus baseline for each trial, then averaged per condition) [I-B] and days of substance use in the follow up period in men and women with SUD. Drug craving (2A) was significantly higher in response to stress and drug cue compared to neutral imagery (S>N: p<.0001; D>N: p<.0001; D>S: p<.001) (for most used substance: alcohol, cocaine, or cannabis). Heart rate (2B) was significantly higher in response to stress and drug cue compared to neutral imagery trials (S>N: p<.0001; D>N: p<.0001; D/S: p<0.751). Anxiety (2C) was significantly higher in response to stress and drug cue imagery compared to neutral (S>N: p<.0001; D>N: p<.0001; and S>D; p<.014 (only in men). Also, Condition X Sex interaction for anxiety (F [2, 140] =3.1; p<.048) was observed stemming from women with SUD showing significantly higher anxiety in response to the drug cue compared to men with SUD (p<.017), and men showed higher anxiety in response to the stress compared to drug cue condition (p<.014), which was not seen in women (p<.20). (2D) Sex differences in the 90-day follow-up of mean days of use (and standard error) with women showing greater number of follow-up of days used than men (p<.006). Mean number of days used in women was 44.61 (±10.50) compared to 18.43 (±3.65) days used in men (Independent t-test t (27.4)=2.35, p<.006) (women, n=23; men, n=42). All data are displayed as mean ± S.E.M.