ArticleDrug and alcohol dependence2020
Cue-elicited functional connectivity of the periaqueductal gray and tonic cocaine craving.
Article in Drug and alcohol dependence, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex Differences in Opioid and Psychostimulant Craving and Relapse: A Critical Review.Pharmacological reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Task-related differences in network connectivity and dynamics in people with severe opioid use disorder compared with healthy controls.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution Model of Drug Addiction: Recent Neuroimaging Evidence and Future Directions.Annual review of psychology · 2026Review
- Fos expression in the periaqueductal gray, but not the ventromedial hypothalamus, is correlated with psychosocial stress-induced cocaine-seeking behavior in rats.Addiction neuroscience · 2025Article
- Cocaine Cues Used in Experimental Research: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Sex differences in stress-modulated cocaine vulnerability: female rodents are more sensitive to the effects of stress exposure at different developmental stages.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Review
- Mapping the Neural Substrates of Cocaine Craving: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Common and distinct drug cue reactivity patterns associated with cocaine and heroin: An fMRI meta-analysis.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Impairments in the Default Mode and Executive Networks in Methamphetamine Users During Short-Term Abstinence.International journal of general medicine · 2022Article
- The Periaqueductal Gray and Its Extended Participation in Drug Addiction Phenomena.Neuroscience bulletin · 2021Review
- Resting state hypothalamic and dorsomedial prefrontal cortical connectivity of the periaqueductal gray in cocaine addiction.Addiction biology · 2021Article
- Midcingulate Cortical Activations Interrelate Chronic Craving and Physiological Responses to Negative Emotions in Cocaine Addiction.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2021Article
- Sex Differences in Substance Use Disorders: A Neurobiological Perspective.Frontiers in global women's health · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWithdrawal from chronic cocaine use leads to anxiety and dysphoria that may perpetuate habitual drug use. The pain circuit is widely implicated in the processing and manifestations of negative emotions. Numerous studies have focused on characterizing reward circuit dysfunction but relatively little is known about the pain circuit response during cocaine withdrawal.
methodsHere we examined the activity and connectivity of the periaqueductal gray (PAG), a hub of the pain circuit, during cocaine cue exposure in 52 recently abstinent cocaine dependent participants (CD, 42 men). Imaging data were processed with published routines, and the results were evaluated at a corrected threshold.
resultsCD showed higher activation of the PAG and connectivity of the PAG with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during cocaine as compared to neutral cue exposure. PAG-vmPFC connectivity was positively and negatively correlated with tonic cocaine craving, as assessed by the Cocaine Craving Questionnaire, in male and female CD, respectively, and the sex difference was confirmed by a slope test. Granger causality analyses showed that the PAG Granger caused vmPFC time series in men and the reverse was true in women, substantiating sex differences in the directional interactions of the PAG and vmPFC.
conclusionThe findings provide the first evidence in humans implicating the PAG circuit in cocaine withdrawal and cocaine craving and advance our understanding of the role of the pain circuit and negative reinforcement in sustaining habitual drug use in cocaine addiction.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.