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Prefrontal cortex activity increases after inpatient treatment for heroin addiction

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Using task-based functional MRI, we examined inpatients with heroin use disorder. We found that 15 weeks of medication-assisted treatment (including supplemental group therapy) improved impaired anterior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex function during an inhibitory control task. Inhibitory control, a core deficit in drug addiction, may be amenable to targeted prefrontal cortex interventions.

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Fig. 1: PFC inhibitory control increases from baseline to follow-up in people with heroin use disorder.

References

  1. Center for Disease Control. Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. top 100,000 annually https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm (2021). A press release that summarizes substance-use-related overdose death statistics.

  2. Goldstein, R. Z. & Volkow, N. D. Drug addiction and its underlying neurobiological basis: neuroimaging evidence for the involvement of the frontal cortex. Am. J. Psychiatry 159, 1642–1652 (2002). A review article that presents core symptoms in drug addiction that are associated with PFC impairments, including excessive salience attributed to drug cues at the expense of nondrug cues and rewards with concomitant decreases in inhibitory control.

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This is a summary of: Ceceli, A. O. et al. Recovery of anterior prefrontal cortex inhibitory control after 15 weeks of inpatient treatment in heroin use disorder. Nat. Ment. Health https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00230-4 (2024).

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Prefrontal cortex activity increases after inpatient treatment for heroin addiction. Nat. Mental Health (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00239-9

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