NEURAL SUBSTRATES OF CIGARETTE SMOKING AND RELATED BEHAVIORS

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Functional neuroimaging studies have pointed to a neural network of limbic and paralimbic structures that subserve the behavioral processes of addiction to drugs of abuse, including nicotine. This neural network includes the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, insular cortices, the amygdala, and the striatum (dorsal striatum and ventral striatum or nucleus accumbens). However, no work in humans has addressed how damage to different components of this neural network in humans will impact the craving, subjective feeling of drug administration, and active seeking of drugs. Nor any of the human studies to date has asked which, if any, of these components is critically necessary for the maintenance of addiction to drugs. This proposal will take advantage of our unique University of Iowa Department of Neurology Patient Registry to begin addressing some of these important issues in patients addicted to nicotine. This project will allow us to understand the brain mechanisms by which environmental exposure to cigarette smoke alters urge and related subjective and physiological parameters that may promote uncontrolled use and relapse. These processes will be studied in both lesioned subjects and in neurologically intact subjects.