2.1 Participants
The current study is part of larger project aimed to investigate sex
differences in the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying CUD. While the
main objective of this project was to investigate sex differences in the
neural correlates of (negative) emotional and cocaine cue-reactivity,
two more exploratory studies to investigate sex differences in the
neural correlates of working memory and cortical morphometry of the
insula, have already been published elsewhere(Cousijn et al. ,
2021; Abdel Malek et al. , 2022). The total sample (n = 111) aged
18 to 43 years consisted of regular CUs (n = 57, 45.6% females) and
matched non-CUs (n = 54, 48.1% females). All participants were free
from any MRI contraindications. General exclusion criteria were
potential post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (≥ 2 on the
Jellinek-PTSD screening questionnaire)(van Dam et al. , 2013), an
age outside the range of 18 to 45, and contraindications for MRI
scanning. For the non-CU group, individuals were excluded if they smoked
cigarettes, had a score higher than 12 on the Alcohol Use Disorders
Identification Test (AUDIT)(Saunders et al. , 1993) or used other
drugs or cocaine no more than five times in the past six months or year,
respectively. Individuals were included in the CU group when they used
cocaine (intranasally) at least four times per month. Participants
provided informed consent and received a monetary compensation for
participation. The current study was approved by the Ethics Review Board
of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of
Amsterdam (ERB number: 2019-DP-9964).