with craving may be modulated by the behavioural strategy that is used to suppress craving. In this elegant study, cigarette smokers were instructed to consider the immediate versus long-term consequences of consuming the stimuli depicted in pictures (cigarette-related versus food-related cues)57. Considering the long-term consequences was associated with increased activity in PFC regions associated with cognitive control (DLPFC and inferior frontal gyrus) and with decreased activity in PFC regions associated with craving (mOFC and ACC). In addition, self-reported craving decreased when subjects considered the long-term consequences, and it was negatively correlated with activity in dACC and DLPFC. A mediation analysis showed that the association between increased activity in DLPFC and regulation-related decreases in craving was no longer significant after including decreased activity in ventral striatum in the model. Nevertheless, preclinical studies using ablation or optogenetic tools are necessary to better understand the interaction of the PFC and the ventral striatum in suppressing craving responses. Taken together, results of studies using behavioural approaches to suppress craving provide support to our proposed model (FIG. 3), which distinguishes between PFC regions that facilitate non-drug related cognitive effort and inhibitory control (DLPFC, dACC and inferior frontal gyrus) and those that reflect drug-related emotional concern,
