week 7-Craving - PET/fMRI study

Question 1

The biggest barrier to treating drug addiction is ____: Whenever they get stressed out, people tend to get cravings toward the drug, and if you are not moving out from where you live, there will always be ____ from the environment that makes one to be more susceptible.

Answer 1

relapse; reinforcement

Question 2

In the cocaine craving study, the authors tested whether limbic brain regions (____, ____ ____ ____, ____, ____ ____) were activated during craving for cocaine. They also used non-limbic regions (____, ____ ____, ____, ____) as negative control to find if there is any specific elements that the drug affect.

Answer 2

Limbic brain areas: amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex

Non-limbic brain regions: caudate, visual cortex, cerebellum, thalamus

Question 3

____ ____ ____ is done by injecting a tracer (in this case water H2O with heavy isotope of oxygen) that is detectable by the PET scan

Answer 3

positron emission tomography

Question 4

In the cocaine craving study, how did the scores of cocaine users and negative controls differ after they were shown crack pipes?

Answer 4

Detoxified cocaine patients showed an increase in cocaine craving and a high from cocaine. The comparison subjects who act as negative controls had no change after they were shown the crack pipe.

Question 5

After they were shown crack pipes, limbic regions ____ and ____ ____ ____ showed statstically significant increased activity in detoxified cocaine users. These areas are then determined to be the areas associated with ____ in human brain. However, without controlling for salience of experimental treatment, we can only determine these areas to be responsible for ____ since they are activated in other studies looking at all kinds of emotional involvements.

Answer 5

amygdala; anterior cingulate cortex; cravings; arousal

Question 6

The results of the cocaine craving study are consistent with the idea that ____ videos elicit an emotional reaction in ____-____ subjects and not ____-____ subjects. However, the brain activity patterns in ____ and ____ ____ ____are not specific to ____ and occur for all types of emotional reactions.

Answer 6

crack; cocaine-dependent; cocaine-naive; amygdala; anterior cingulate cortex; craving