In addition to frontal and striatal brain regions, human neuroimaging studies of drug-cue reactivity often observe activation in another fundamental brain region that is given much less emphasis—the visual cortex. Although significant drug cue-elicited activity in the occipital cortex is commonly demonstrated and has been found in previous meta-analyses of drug cue-reactivity (Chase et al., 2011; Engelmann et al., 2012; Schacht et al., 2013), it is rarely reported as a primary finding and has historically not been given very much consideration in the context of addiction. More recently however, numerous investigations have described significant drug cue-elicited activity in visual cortex that directly relates to a host of clinical factors such as cigarette craving during 24-hour abstinence but not satiety (McClernon et al., 2009), resisting craving for cigarettes (Brody et al., 2007), as well as measures of self-recognition of problematic cocaine use and desire to change (Prisciandaro et al., 2014). Given these associations, and the fact that visual cortex activity specific to drug cues is compatible with emerging literature regarding the role for primary visual cortex in reward processing (Schuler et
