Jarmolowicz, David P.Bickel, Warren K.Gatchalian, Kirstin M.2017-04-142017-04-142013-08-01Jarmolowicz, David P., Warren K. Bickel, and Kirstin M. Gatchalian. “Alcohol-Dependent Individuals Discount Sex at Higher Rates than Controls.” Drug and alcohol dependence 131.3 (2013): 320–323.https://hdl.handle.net/1808/23701Background Research on delay discounting has expanded our understanding of substance dependence in many ways. Recently, orderly discounting of sexual rewards has been demonstrated in both substance-dependent individuals, and healthy controls. Less clear, however, is if rates of sexual discounting are higher than controls in alcohol-dependent-individuals. Methods 20 Alcohol-dependent individuals and 21 healthy control participants completed two delay-discounting tasks. One task involved monetary rewards, whereas the other involved the discounting of sexual rewards (i.e., number of sex acts). Results Alcohol dependent individuals discounted sexual rewards at significantly higher rates than did controls. There was a trend towards, but not a similarly significant relation for the discounting of monetary rewards. Conclusions Rates of sexual discounting are elevated in alcohol dependent individuals. If this relation is replicated in other at risk populations, the rapid devaluation of sexual rewards may be a behavioral marker of impulsive sexual choices.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License 3.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US), which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/Delay discountingSexAlcoholDependenceArticle10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.12.014openAccess