Feature Story

November 16, 2008

Drug-related preference in cocaine addiction extends to images

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

When given a choice between viewing pictures of cocaine and a variety of other images, cocaine addicted individuals, as compared to healthy, non-addicted research subjects, show a clear preference for the drug-related images.

Findings from this study, which was conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington D.C. on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008.

Scott Moeller, a psychology graduate student at the University of Michigan worked with the Brookhaven Lab Neuropsychoimaging group (director, Rita Goldstein) on this research.

"This behavioral study demonstrates for the first time that drug-related choice in cocaine addiction extends to abstract, non-pharmacological stimuli, facilitating the study of choice behavior in addiction without using actual cocaine," Moeller said.

Previously, scientists have had to administer the actual drug (cocaine), or drugs that are pharmacologically similar to cocaine, to test its effects on brain and behavioral functions.

Now, the tasks developed by Moeller while training with Goldstein's team could help clinicians monitor choice behavior --- for example, to follow the effectiveness of treatment --- in addicted individuals who are currently abstaining from drugs.

In the first task of the experiment, both healthy control subjects and cocaine-addicted individuals digitally selected one of four face-down card decks and could select a card again from the same deck or switch decks.

Unknown to the subjects, each deck contained mostly one image type: cocaine-related images, pleasant images, unpleasant images, or neutral ones.

On both tasks, the cocaine-addicted individuals chose the cocaine-related images more than the healthy controls, who showed clear aversion to these images.

Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation of State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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