Over the last 10 years, there has been recognition that chronic cocaine use is associated with several cognitive deficits. One prominent feature of these deficits is impulsivity. Impulsivity, in this context, can be thought of as a predisposition toward rapid unplanned reactions to internal or external stimuli without regard to the negative consequences (Moeller et al., 2001a). In this definition, there is a clear overlap with the construct of addiction, which has been defined as “the loss of control over the intense urges to take the drug even at the expense of adverse consequences” (O’Brien et al., 2006).
