The absence of a control group that did not receive a priming dose of alcohol represents a study limitation, as a control group could have provided additional assurances that the observed post-priming craving and BOLD effects are due to the alcohol priming dose specifically, as opposed to an accumulation and carryover effect of repeated cue presentations during the pre-priming scan. This alternative explanation is unlikely, at least in terms of the craving results, as cue-induced craving episodes are typically shown to return close to baseline within 15–30 minutes (39); thus, without the priming dose of alcohol, we would expect to see a significant drop in craving at the beginning of the post-priming scan given it occurred approximately 40 minutes after the cessation of the pre-priming scan. Furthermore, separate analyses of the alcohol and water cue trials suggest that the post-priming habituation effect is specific to the alcohol cues, and is not due to a general decrease in task novelty (see supplementary materials). The relatively small sample size is another limitation, but is mitigated by the within-subject design for the primary
