Special Issue Article
Limbic-Striatal Memory Systems and Drug Addiction

https://doi.org/10.1006/nlme.2002.4103Get rights and content

Abstract

Drug addiction can be understood as a pathological subversion of normal brain learning and memory processes strengthened by the motivational impact of drug-associated stimuli, leading to the establishment of compulsive drug-seeking habits. Such habits evolve through a cascade of complex associative processes with Pavlovian and instrumental components that may depend on the integration and coordination of output from several somewhat independent neural systems of learning and memory, each contributing to behavioral performance. Data are reviewed that help to define the influences of conditioned Pavlovian stimuli on goal-directed behavior via sign-tracking, motivational arousal, and conditioned reinforcement. Such influences are mediated via defined corticolimbic-striatal systems converging on the ventral striatum and driving habit-based learning that may depend on the dorsal striatum. These systems include separate and overlapping influences from the amygdala, hippocampus, and cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex on drug-seeking as well as drug-taking behavior, including the propensity to relapse.

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    The research summarized here is supported by an MRC Programme Grant (G9537855) to B.J.E., T.W.R., and A.D. and was carried out within the MRC Co-operative in Brain, Behaviour and Neuropsychiatry. We gratefully acknowledge the major contributions of Anthony Dickinson, Helen Alderson, Mercedes Arroyo, Barak Caine, Rudolf Cardinal, Patricia DiCiano, Jeremy Hall, Rutsuko Ito, Athina Markou, Cella Olmstead, John Parkinson, Maria Pilla, and Rachel Whitelaw, among others.

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    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Trevor W. Robbins, Department of Experimental Psychology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK. Fax 44-1223 314547. E-mail: [email protected].

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