Brain Activity During Cue-Induced Craving

In these extraordinary images, Dr. Katherine Bonson and her colleagues at NIDA’s Intramural Research Program have captured the process of a cocaine-related cue triggering craving for cocaine in the brain of an addicted individual. The investigators used positron emission tomography (PET) to create images of brain activity in 11 cocaine-addicted volunteers who reported on the intensity of their craving for cocaine while watching videotapes showing drug paraphernalia. In the three views of the human brain shown below, yellow patches indicate areas where increased activation corresponded to reports of increased craving when the videotape showed drugrelated images. Blue overlays mark the key brain structures in which these areas of increased activation occurred; taken together, as explained below, they form a coordinated network that integrates memory, emotion, attention, and expectation into a desire to use cocaine.