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Abstract OBJECTIVE: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to test whether brain activation was detectable in regions previously associated with cocaine cue-induced craving. METHOD: Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional activation was measured during presentation of audiovisual stimuli containing alternating intervals of drug-related and neutral scenes to six male subjects with a history of crack cocaine use and six male comparison subjects. RESULTS: Significant activation was detected in the anterior cingulate and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the cocaine-using group. In addition, a correlation between selfreported levels of craving and activation in these regions was found.CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that functional MRI may be a useful tool to study the neurobiological basis of cueinduced craving. (Am J Psychiatry ١٩٩٨; ١٥٥:١٢٤–١٢٦) Although the role of craving in subsequent drug taking continues to be debated, craving is nevertheless an important measurable component of drug abuse whose neurobiological basis remains an enigma (١). Recently, functional neuroimaging methods have been used to identify brain structures that may mediate cueinduced craving. Using [١٨F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET), Grant et al. (٢) demonstrated metabolic increases in a number of brain regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobes, in cocaine users after exposure to cocaine-related cues. In a preliminary study, Childress et al. (٣) used PET with oxygen-١٥- labeled water to demonstrate significant increases in blood flow in the amygdala, anterior cingulate, and temporal poles of cocaine users after they viewed videotapes containing cocaine-related cues. Echo planar functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based on blood oxygenation level dependent contrast is an alternative method for the measurement of brain activation in response to stimuli, providing high spatial and temporal resolution without radioactive tracers (٤, ٥). Unlike kinetic parameters estimated with PET, the blood oxygenation level dependent signal does not have a direct physiological significance but, rather, is related to changes in local blood flow and deoxyhemoglobin levels subsequent to neuronal activation (٤, ٥). In this study, we evaluated whether cocaine cue-induced regional cerebral activation previously detected with PET (٢, ٣) is also detectable with blood oxygenation level dependent functional MRI. |