Neuroimaging for drug addiction and related behaviors
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Muhammad A. Parvaz
Abstract
In this review, we highlight the role of neuroimaging techniques in studying the emotional and cognitive-behavioral components of the addiction syndrome by focusing on the neural substrates subserving them. The phenomenology of drug addiction can be characterized by a recurrent pattern of subjective experiences that includes drug intoxication, craving, bingeing, and withdrawal with the cycle culminating in a persistent preoccupation with obtaining, consuming, and recovering from the drug. In the past two decades, imaging studies of drug addiction have demonstrated deficits in brain circuits related to reward and impulsivity. The current review focuses on studies employing positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate these behaviors in drug-addicted human populations. We begin with a brief account of drug addiction followed by a technical account of each of these imaging modalities. We then discuss how these techniques have uniquely contributed to a deeper understanding of addictive behaviors.
©2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Guest Editorial
- The emerging discipline of behavioral neuroimaging
- Special Issue: Behavioral Neuroimaging
- Cognition in action: imaging brain/body dynamics in mobile humans
- Neuroimaging for drug addiction and related behaviors
- Pharmacological challenge and synaptic response – assessing dopaminergic function in the rat striatum with small animal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET)
- Integrating PET with behavioral neuroscience using RatCAP tomography
- Motion-tracking technique in unrestrained small-animal single-photon emission computed tomography
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging in awake animals
- Manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI): neurophysiological applications
- Optical detection of brain function: simultaneous imaging of cerebral vascular response, tissue metabolism, and cellular activity in vivo
Articles in the same Issue
- Guest Editorial
- The emerging discipline of behavioral neuroimaging
- Special Issue: Behavioral Neuroimaging
- Cognition in action: imaging brain/body dynamics in mobile humans
- Neuroimaging for drug addiction and related behaviors
- Pharmacological challenge and synaptic response – assessing dopaminergic function in the rat striatum with small animal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET)
- Integrating PET with behavioral neuroscience using RatCAP tomography
- Motion-tracking technique in unrestrained small-animal single-photon emission computed tomography
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging in awake animals
- Manganese enhanced MRI (MEMRI): neurophysiological applications
- Optical detection of brain function: simultaneous imaging of cerebral vascular response, tissue metabolism, and cellular activity in vivo
