ArticleThe American psychologist2016
Liking, wanting, and the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction.
Article in The American psychologist, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05505019 (The Role of a Personalized Music Intervention Towards Alleviating Apathy in Parkinson's Disease), which is not on this map. Cited by 535 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Role of a Personalized Music Intervention Towards Alleviating Apathy in Parkinson's Disease
Who cites it
535 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- Across the spectrum: Acute alcohol responses in young adults with mild, moderate, and severe alcohol use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Trial
- Dysregulated eating behaviour and microbiota-based interventions targeting eating disorders and food addiction.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Joint effects of real-world cue exposure and affective states on momentary alcohol craving in adults with alcohol use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2026Article
- Macronutrient mixtures and interactions in health and disease.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2026Review
- Exploring the nature and relationship of tobacco cigarette craving and withdrawal.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Article
- Dissociation of decision-making from escalated drug intake within a long-access model.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- Regulation of Craving: Neural Correlates and the Role of Stress and Delay Discounting.Addiction biology · 2026Article
- Sexual Dysregulation After Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke: A Critical Narrative Review of Neurobiology, Clinical Phenotypes, and Management.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Person, Affective, Cognitive, and Executive Dimensions Associated with Problematic Social Media Use, Internet Gaming Disorder, and Their Co-Occurrence in Young Adults.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Article
- Perceived Social Support Moderates the Response to Stress and Alcohol Cues During Early Abstinence From Alcohol.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Temporal Dynamics of Reward Dysfunction in Psychiatric Disorders: Memory-Derived Value, Incentive Salience, Hedonic Impact, and Value Updating.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Review
- GLP-1 and dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonists' psychopharmacology and putative neuropsychiatric associated effects: a Bradford Hill-informed, systematic, evaluation.Current psychiatry reports · 2026Review
- Conative inference as a mechanism of allostatic resilience: wanting to be and being to want.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- The association between cannabis use and brain reward anticipation: a 12-month longitudinal study of adults and adolescents who use cannabis and age-matched controls.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Alcohol Cues Invigorate Aversion-Resistant Alcohol Drinking.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Active Ingredients in Digital Cognitive Interventions: Integrating Dismantling Designs With Mechanistic Neuroscience.JMIR mental health · 2026Article
- Fentanyl Induces Behavioral Sensitization and Decreases Class IIa HDAC Expression-Activity in Brain as Measured by [Brain sciences · 2026Article
475 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Rewards are both "liked" and "wanted," and those 2 words seem almost interchangeable. However, the brain circuitry that mediates the psychological process of "wanting" a particular reward is dissociable from circuitry that mediates the degree to which it is "liked." Incentive salience or "wanting," a form of motivation, is generated by large and robust neural systems that include mesolimbic dopamine. By comparison, "liking," or the actual pleasurable impact of reward consumption, is mediated by smaller and fragile neural systems, and is not dependent on dopamine. The incentive-sensitization theory posits the essence of drug addiction to be excessive amplification specifically of psychological "wanting," especially triggered by cues, without necessarily an amplification of "liking." This is because of long-lasting changes in dopamine-related motivation systems of susceptible individuals, called "neural sensitization." A quarter-century after its proposal, evidence has continued to grow in support the incentive-sensitization theory. Further, its scope is now expanding to include diverse behavioral addictions and other psychopathologies. (PsycINFO Database Record
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