(assessed using the BIS-10); however, this finding was moderated by alcohol dependence status, such that low activation in these neural areas was only correlated with high impulsivity in alcoholics and not in control subjects. Because the ventral striatum is believed to signal the likelihood of reward (Schultz, Apicella, Scarnati, & Ljungberg, 1992), these findings suggest that disordered neural signaling of alcohol vs. non-alcohol reward availability could contribute to impulsive alcohol use behavior in clinical samples. To date, findings from fMRI and PET studies suggest that hard-to-resist urges to use drugs involve the ventral striatum, insula, OFC, and lateral prefrontal cortex, all regions that comprise aspects of the extended reward system (Olbrich et al., 2006; Hermann et al., 2006; de Greck et al., 2009; Park, et al., 2007).
