Activation of prefrontal cortex and anterior thalamus in alcoholic subjects on exposure to alcohol-specific cues

Background: Functional imaging studies have recently demonstrated that spec ific brain regions become active in cocaine addicts when they are exposed t o cocaine stimuli. To test whether there are regional brain activity differ ences during alcohol cue exposure between alcoholic subjects and social dri nkers, we designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol involving alcohol-specific cues. Methods: Ten non-treatment-seeking adult alcoholic subjects (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.9 [9.9] years) as well as 10 healthy social drinking controls of similar age (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.4 [8.9] years) were recruited, screened, and scanned. In the 1.5-T magnetic resonance imaging scanner, su bjects were serially rated for alcohol craving, before and after. a sip of alcohol, and after a g-minute randomized pl presentation of pictures of alc oholic beverages, control nonalcoholic beverages, and 2 different visual co ntrol tasks. During picture presentation, changes in regional brain activit y were measured with the blued oxygen level-dependent technique. Results: Alcoholic subjects, compared with the social drinking subjects, re ported higher overall craving ratings for alcohol. After a sip of alcohol, while viewing alcohol cues compared with viewing other beverage cues, only the alcoholic subjects had increased activity in the left dorsolateral pref rontal cortex and the anterior thalamus. The social drinkers exhibited spec ific activation only while viewing the control beverage pictures. Conclusions: When exposed to alcohol cues, alcoholic subjects have increase d brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and anterior thalamus-brain regio ns associated with emotion regulation, attention, and appetitive behavior.