in other substance addiction disorders11,13. The incentive salience to an otherwise neutral stimulus is hypothesized to be the component that drives the pathological craving of the substance. This is proposed to be modulated subcortically by the NAcc, which receives dopaminergic input from the VTA, which is strongly tied to reward-motivated behavior24. Thus, increased NAcc BOLD signal in the current study may be also be characteristic of the patients experiencing a pathological feeling of “want” upon seeing pictures of alcoholic beverages as opposed to non-alcoholic beverages8.
