Goldstein and Volkow (2002) have provided an informative review of neuroimaging findings showing dysfunction of prefrontal cortex in addictions. They suggested that prefrontal abnormalities affect limbic reward regions and lead to dysregulation of executive functions, especially the ability to inhibit maladaptive or disadvantageous behaviors. In alcoholism, abnormalities of task-related and resting-state functional connectivity have been documented in frontal brain circuitry supporting executive functions. In an fMRI study designed to assess reward-guided adaptive decision-making during a visual reinforcement-learning task, Park et al. (2010) found that compared to controls, alcoholics had lower functional connectivity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. The abnormalities in frontostriatal activity were associated with decision-making difficulties; however, mean sobriety was only 17 days and may not represent persistent effects. Schulte et al. (2012a) used a modified Stroop task to examine inhibitory control and conflict processing. In controls, posterior cingulate cortex was activated during response switching and deactivated during response repetition, whereas alcoholics showed the opposite pattern, and greater deviations from the normal activity correlated with higher amounts of lifetime alcohol consumption. A functional dissociation of
