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Electrophysiological evidence that drug cues have greater salience than other affective stimuli in opiate addiction

¹ ORYGEN Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Australia and Neuroscienceand Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, UK.
² ORYGEN Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Australia and Departmentof Psychology, University of Melbourne, Australia
³ Neuroscience and Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, UK.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

	Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that drug cues are able to captureattentional resources in addicted populations. However, few studies havecontrolled for the possibility that drug users find all motivationally significant(i.e., affective) stimuli particularly salient. We examined thisissue in opiate addiction, by exploring the impact of drug-related andaffective stimuli on central attentional processes. Sixteen male heroinaddicts (seven on opiate pharmacotherapy and nine recently detoxifiedsubjects) and 12 matched controls were studied. Subjects were fittedwith a 32-channel electrode cap and were instructed to passively view aseries of neutral, affective and opiate-related images. The P300 elicitedby drug-related stimuli was significantly larger than that elicited byaffective and neutral stimuli in opiate users but not controls. Baselineratings of craving were also found to predict the degree of P300 facilitationto the drug-related stimuli in the addicted group. Further, the opiategroup demonstrated an absence of the typical enhancement of ERPresponses to non-drug affective stimuli. These results suggest that opiateaddicts demonstrate greater cortical processing of drug cues thanother types of affective stimuli. Further research is required to assesswhether addiction is specifically associated with reduced sensitivity tonatural rewards, aversive stimuli or affective cues in general.

Key Words: opiate dependence, addiction, ERP, P300, drug cues, attention, craving, emotion, anhedonia

First published on January 21, 2008, doi:10.1177/0269881107083846

Journal of Psychopharmacology 2008;22:836.

A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2008
This version was published on June 2, 2008


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