Is childhood adversity associated with a heightened response to opioids?

) Does childhood adversity alter opioid drug reward? A conceptual replication in outpatients before surgery. OSF, ver. 2

license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/A convergence of evidence suggests that early life adversity may cause dysfunction in opioid-sensitive reward systems.Childhood adversity is associated with opioid use, potentially by altering reward and motivation networks, and experimental models in animals have found that early life adversity increases and consolidates opioid seeking behaviours.Further, in a recent controlled experiment, Carlyle et al. (2021) found that opioid administration produced stronger positive responses, and weaker negative responses, in adults with a history of childhood abuse and neglect.In the current study, Carlyle et al. (2023) tested the generalisability of these previous findings in a pre-operative clinical setting.Using partially observed data from an existing cohort study (N=155), the authors asked whether patients with greater experience of childhood trauma in turn exhibit a larger mood boost and express greater subjective pleasure following opioid administration.In contrast to previous findings, the results did not support the hypotheses that more experiences of childhood adversity would heighten ratings of drug liking and feeling good following opioid administration.Regression analyses instead revealed a statistically significant negative association between childhood adversity and post-opioid liking and no significant relationship with feeling good.The authors suggest that the discrepancy between the current and previous results may be due to stress related to the pre-surgical setting, the brief duration of drug exposure, and the relatively limited levels of high childhood adversity in the study sample.Nevertheless, these findings cast some doubt on the theory that adversity elevates risk of opioid addiction by altering sensitivity to subjectively pleasurable effects.Following one round of in-depth review, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria and awarded a positive recommendation.URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/7ymtsLevel of bias control achieved: Level 2. At least some data/evidence that was used to answer the research question had been accessed and partially observed by the authors prior to IPA, but the authors certify that they had not yet observed the key variables within the data that were used to answer the research question AND they took additional steps to maximise bias control and rigour.List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals: • Swiss Psychology Open SE or CI is reported.Now we know what we are talking about in terms of the units the subjects responded with.It gives a clearer sense of how big or small an effect is. (Correspondingly, I report all means and SDs in the same averaged-over-items units -I don't want to tell other researchers to do this as the original total scale may have some meaning for them; but when it is my research I always do this.And I report corresponding effects from other papers in such units as well, for comparison, even though the original authors probably reported in some meaningless total scale.I think reporting total scores hides a lot.)But I leave the exact raw units the authors wish to use up to them; just notate them each time a raw slope is given so it is clear what they are.
3) Optional.In raw units, can the authors report a confidence interval on the difference in feeling good and liking between the two extreme groups, identified as in the original study, and compare what the difference was for the original study (e.g. about 18 points on a 0-100 euphoria scale?So about 2 units on a 0-10 feeling good scale).If the CI includes the original study's value then there is not a failure to replicate by an analysis close to the original study's.Just a quick rule of thumb for making sense of the results.

Reviewed by Yuki Yamada , 03 February 2023
This is a Stage 2 manuscript in which I previously reviewed a Stage 1 manuscript and analyses were performed according to the protocol that IPA was granted.As I mentioned in Stage 1, I am not an expert on this topic, so I cannot make good points on the theoretical aspects.However, I can at least admit that the main hypothesis was not supported by this analysis, or rather that a weak opposite effect was observed.I agree with the authors about the possibility that the sample size issue in this case, including the exploratory analysis, may not have ensured its coverage or verified its linearity.On the other hand, it is worthwhile to publish this study because the exploratory investigation has identified some promising possibilities for future research.
Minor points are noted below.Overall, no major problems were found.
-Some minor changes to the introduction and methods are observed, but most of them are probably only modifications to the citation numbers, so there is probably no problem.
-There are analyses that are not included in the Stage 1 manuscript as "Exploratory analyses", but it would be good to state clearly that these are not registered so that readers who do not rigorously check the Stage 1 manuscript will not be misled.