We conducted a comprehensive PubMed electronic database search of all English language, addiction-related studies published by August, 2013 that assessed the neural response to drug-related cues using fMRI. Keywords for the imaging component were “imaging”, “MRI”, and “BOLD”. For the addiction component we searched “addict*”, “drug”, “abuse”, as well as individual classes/types of drugs including “nicotine”, “smok*”, “cocaine”, “stimulant”, “methamphetamine”, “alcohol*”, “opiate”, “heroin”, “marijuana” and “cannabis”. Lastly, we searched all “cue”, “cue-reactivity”, and “craving” studies. The goal was to identify (1) f MRI experiments of drug cue-reactivity that (2) presented visual cues to a substance-abusing population, (3) analyzed the data in a whole-brain approach (that included the occipital lobe), and (4) reported the results of drug versus non-drug cues within the substance-using population. Papers were selected after examination of the methods, and chosen if criteria of an fMRI drug cue-reactivity primary investigation were met. The reference sections of those selected were also searched for additional pertinent investigations.
