Neural Activity Related to Drug Craving in Cocaine Addiction

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Abstract
THE PROGRESSION to cocaine addiction and its chronically relapsing nature is often attributed to frequent and intense bouts of drug craving that are triggered by environmental and internal stimuli that have established conditioned associations with cocaine-induced euphoria or withdrawal.1 Places, people, actions and sensations associated with past drug use, and their collection as episodic memories thus represent conditioned cues that trigger drug craving as a conditioned response. An understanding of the regional brain activity that underlies this drive state could define mechanisms of relapse following abstinence, and potentially guide the development of new treatments for addiction. Cocaine craving is also experienced following cocaine administration,2 and it may motivate the binge abuse of cocaine through the activation of similar or different neural pathways.