1. Basal Hippocampal Activity and Its Functional Connectivity Predicts Cocaine Relapse. Cocaine-induced neuroplastic changes may result in a heightened propensity for relapse. Using regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) as a marker of basal neuronal activity, this study assessed alterations in rCBF and related resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) to prospectively predict relapse in patients following treatment for cocaine use disorder (CUD). Pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging and resting blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired in the same scan session in abstinent participants with CUD before residential treatment discharge and in 20 healthy matched control subjects. Substance use was assessed twice weekly following discharge. Relapsed participants were defined as those who used stimulants within 30 days following treatment discharge (n = 22); early remission participants (n = 18) did not. Voxel-wise, whole-brain analysis revealed enhanced rCBF only in the left posterior hippocampus (pHp) in the relapsed group compared with the early remission and control groups. Using this pHp as a seed, increased rsFC strength with the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus was seen in the relapsed versus early remission subgroups. Together, both increased pHp rCBF and strengthened pHp-PCC rsFC predicted relapse with 75% accuracy at 30, 60, and 90 days following treatment. In CUD participants at risk of early relapse, increased pHp basal activity and pHp-PCC circuit strength may reflect the propensity for heightened reactivity to cocaine cues and persistent cocaine-related ruminations. Mechanisms to mute hyperactivated brain regions and delink dysregulated neural circuits may prove useful to prevent relapse in patients with CUD. 2. Impaired functional connectivity within and between frontostriatal circuits and its association with compulsive drug use and trait impulsivity in cocaine addiction. Converging evidence has long identified both impulsivity and compulsivity as key psychological constructs in drug addiction. Although dysregulated striatal-cortical network interactions have been identified in cocaine addiction, the association between these brain networks and addiction is poorly understood. To test the hypothesis that cocaine addiction is associated with disturbances in striatal-cortical communication as captured by resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), measured from coherent spontaneous fluctuations in the blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging signal, and to explore the relationships between striatal rsFC, trait impulsivity, and uncontrolled drug use in cocaine addiction. A case-control, cross-sectional study was conducted at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program outpatient magnetic resonance imaging facility. Data used in the present study were collected between December 8, 2005, and September 30, 2011. Participants included 56 non-treatment-seeking cocaine users (CUs) (52 with cocaine dependence and 3 with cocaine abuse) and 56 healthy individuals serving as controls (HCs) matched on age, sex, years of education, race, estimated intelligence, and smoking status. Voxelwise statistical parametric analysis testing the rsFC strength differences between CUs and HCs in brain regions functionally connected to 6 striatal subregions defined a priori. Increased rsFC strength was observed predominantly in striatal-frontal circuits; decreased rsFC was found between the striatum and cingulate, striatal, temporal, hippocampal/amygdalar, and insular regions in the CU group compared with the HCs. Increased striatal-dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex connectivity strength was positively correlated with the amount of recent cocaine use (uncorrected P < .046) and elevated trait impulsivity in the CUs (uncorrected P < .012), and an index reflecting the balance between striatal-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and striatal-anterior prefrontal/orbitofrontal cortex circuits was significantly associated with loss of control over cocaine use (corrected P < .012). Cocaine addiction is associated with disturbed rsFC in several specific striatal-cortical circuits. Specifically, compulsive cocaine use, a defining characteristic of dependence, was associated with a balance of increased striatal-anterior prefrontal/orbitofrontal and decreased striatal-dorsal anterior cingulate connectivity; trait impulsivity, both a risk factor for and a consequence of cocaine use, was associated with increased dorsal striatal-dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex connectivity uniquely in CUs. These findings provide new insights toward the neurobiological mechanisms of addiction and suggest potential novel therapeutic targets for treatment. 3. Interactions between the salience and default-mode networks are disrupted in cocaine addiction. Cocaine dependence is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder manifested as dysregulation of multiple behavioral, emotional, and cognitive constructs. Neuroimaging studies have begun to identify specific neurobiological circuit impairments in cocaine-dependent (CD) individuals that may underlie these symptoms. However, whether, where, and how the interactions within and between these circuits are disrupted remain largely unknown. We used resting-state fMRI and modularity network analysis to identify brain modules of a priori interest (default-mode network DMN, salience network SN, executive control network ECN, medial temporal lobe MTL, and striatum) in 47 CD and 47 matched healthy control (HC) participants and explored alterations within and between these brain modules as a function of addiction. At the module level, intermodule connectivity decreased between DMN and SN in CD. At the nodal level, several regions showed decreased connections with multiple modules in CD: the rostral anterior cingulate connection strength was reduced with SN and MTL; the posterior cingulate had reduced connections with ECN; and the bilateral insula demonstrated decreased connections with DMN. Furthermore, alexithymia, a personality trait previously associated with addiction, correlated negatively with intramodule connectivity within SN only in cocaine users. Our results indicate that cocaine addiction is associated with disrupted interactions among DMN, MTL, and SN, which have been implicated, respectively, in self-referential functions, emotion and memory, and coordinating between internal and external stimuli, providing novel and important insights into the neurobiological mechanisms of cocaine addiction.

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12
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2015
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National Institute on Drug Abuse
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