TY  - JOUR
A1  - Garbusow, Maria
A1  - Schad, Daniel
A1  - Sebold, Miriam Hannah
A1  - Friedel, Eva
A1  - Bernhardt, Nadine
A1  - Koch, Stefan P.
A1  - Steinacher, Bruno
A1  - Kathmann, Norbert
A1  - Geurts, Dirk E. M.
A1  - Sommer, Christian
A1  - Mueller, Dirk K.
A1  - Nebe, Stephan
A1  - Paul, Soeren
A1  - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich
A1  - Zimmermann, Ulrich S.
A1  - Walter, Henrik
A1  - Smolka, Michael N.
A1  - Sterzer, Philipp
A1  - Rapp, Michael Armin
A1  - Huys, Quentin J. M.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Heinz, Andreas
T1  - Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer effects in the nucleus accumbens relate to relapse in alcohol dependence
T2  - Addiction biology
N2  - In detoxified alcohol-dependent patients, alcohol-related stimuli can promote relapse. However, to date, the mechanisms by which contextual stimuli promote relapse have not been elucidated in detail. One hypothesis is that such contextual stimuli directly stimulate the motivation to drink via associated brain regions like the ventral striatum and thus promote alcohol seeking, intake and relapse. Pavlovian-to-Instrumental-Transfer (PIT) may be one of those behavioral phenomena contributing to relapse, capturing how Pavlovian conditioned (contextual) cues determine instrumental behavior (e.g. alcohol seeking and intake). We used a PIT paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of classically conditioned Pavlovian stimuli on instrumental choices in n=31 detoxified patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence and n=24 healthy controls matched for age and gender. Patients were followed up over a period of 3 months. We observed that (1) there was a significant behavioral PIT effect for all participants, which was significantly more pronounced in alcohol-dependent patients; (2) PIT was significantly associated with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in subsequent relapsers only; and (3) PIT-related NAcc activation was associated with, and predictive of, critical outcomes (amount of alcohol intake and relapse during a 3 months follow-up period) in alcohol-dependent patients. These observations show for the first time that PIT-related BOLD signals, as a measure of the influence of Pavlovian cues on instrumental behavior, predict alcohol intake and relapse in alcohol dependence.
KW  - human Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer
KW  - nucleus accumbens
KW  - relapse in alcohol use disorder
Y1  - 2016
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45385
SN  - 1355-6215
SN  - 1369-1600
VL  - 21
SP  - 719
EP  - 731
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -