Functional neuroimaging studies in addiction: Multisensory drug stimuli and neural cue reactivity

• Published in: Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 825 - 835
• Main Authors: Yalachkov, Yavor, Kaiser, Jochen, Naumer, Marcus J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier 01.02.2012
• Subjects: Addictive behaviors; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Animals; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain - blood supply; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Cues; Databases, Bibliographic - statistics & numerical data; Drug addiction; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Medical sciences; Neuroimaging; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Radionuclide Imaging; Substance-Related Disorders - pathology; Substance-Related Disorders - physiopathology; Substance-Related Disorders - psychology; Neuroimaging; Biomarker; Motor pathway; Central nervous system; Biological marker; Insula; Review; Encephalon; Posterior cingulate cortex; Cingulate cortex; Motor cortex; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Arterial spin-labeled perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI); Multisensory; Drug addiction; Positron emission tomography (PET); Illicit drug; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Sign language; Addiction; Perfusion; Cue reactivity; Drug dependence; Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Intermodal perception; Insular cortex; Positron emission tomography; Functional imaging; Emission tomography; Crossmodal
• ISSN: 0149-7634; 1873-7528; 1873-7528
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.12.004

Neuroimaging studies on cue reactivity have substantially contributed to the understanding of addiction. In the majority of studies drug cues were presented in the visual modality. However, exposure to conditioned cues in real life occurs often simultaneously in more than one sensory modality. Therefore, multisensory cues should elicit cue reactivity more consistently than unisensory stimuli and increase the ecological validity and the reliability of brain activation measurements. This review includes the data from 44 whole-brain functional neuroimaging studies with a total of 1168 subjects (812 patients and 356 controls). Correlations between neural cue reactivity and clinical covariates such as craving have been reported significantly more often for multisensory than unisensory cues in the motor cortex, insula and posterior cingulate cortex. Thus, multisensory drug cues are particularly effective in revealing brain-behavior relationships in neurocircuits of addiction responsible for motivation, craving awareness and self-related processing.