Drug cue-reactivity—the array of psychological, physiological, and behavioral effects elicited by drug-related stimuli—has been utilized for more than two decades in an attempt to understand drug craving and dependence (Rohsenow et al., 1991; Drummond, 2001; Carter and Tiffany, 1999). As of 2014, there were over 100 functional neuroimaging studies that investigated cue-reactivity in a range of drug using populations. These studies have provided substantial knowledge regarding the neural response to drug cues, revealing a common set of brain regions which are now classically considered a part of the network engaged in response to drug cues and craving. These oft-cited brain regions—up-regulated in the presence of visual drug cues—include the medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and the striatum (Kühn and Gallinat, 2011; Schacht et al., 2013). These established regions are similarly reported in non-human primate studies of drug self-administration (Porrino et al., 2004), and rodent studies of drug reinstatement (McFarland et al., 2003; Dayas et al., 2007).
