Negative emotions including those triggered by exposure to stressful stimuli provide an important prompt in drug taking. This may reflect the adverse effects that negative emotions have on self-control (57). Indeed, an imaging study in cocaine abusers assessed the effects of distressing stimuli and showed that such stimuli decreased activity in prefrontal regions while increasing it in striatal regions (74). In these subjects, the activation of striatal regions was associated with stress-induced cocaine craving and is consistent with a decrease in top-down control upon exposure to stressful stimuli.
