Neural responses associated with cue evoked emotional states and heroin inopiate addicts

Ten male opiate addicts, who were current heroin injectors, underwent posit ron emission tomographic (PET) scanning during exposure to a sequence of si x alternating drug related and neutral video cues, on two occasions. After the second scan, each subject received heroin or placebo using a randomised single-blind procedure. This design allowed the investigation of patterns of brain activity during a range of self-reported cue evoked emotional slat es, both in the presence and absence of heroin. Self-reports of 'urge to us e' correlated strongly with increased regional blood flow (rCBF) in the inf erior frontal and orbitofrontal cortex target regions of the mesolimbic dop aminergic system, implicated in conditioning and reward. 'Urge to use' was also associated with highly significant increased rCBF in the right pre-cun eus, an area associated with episodic memory retrieval, and in the left ins ula, implicated in the processing of the emotional components of stimuli. S elf-reports of feeling 'high' correlated with rCBF activation in the hippoc ampus, an area relevant to the acquisition of stimulus-associated reinforce ment. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.