These subcortical regions also extend their dopaminergic input to more cortical regions such as dACC. dACC has been shown to encode goal-directed salience to an incoming stimulus, reward-based decision making, and learning and performance of novel tasks, which are functionally known to be dopaminergic25. Additionally a previous meta-analysis investigating the neural correlates of craving showed that dACC was an important area for encoding craving in different substance use disorders26. The pathological increase in BOLD signal and electrical activity in the dACC signifies its importance in encoding pathological cravings not only in response to a stimulus but also in a resting state. This may be confirmed by the results of our previous study where we showed that repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) targeting the dACC using a double cone coil or an electrode implanted on the dACC can dramatically suppress the intractable craving for alcohol7,27.
