A review of the effects of perceived drug use opportunity on self-reported urge.

Abstract

Although persons addicted to drugs reliably report experiencing cravings or urges during drug cue exposure, less is known about factors that may moderate this effect. This article reviews cue exposure studies with people who smoke, are dependent on alcohol, or are addicted to cocaine or opiates. Perceived drug use opportunity is found to affect urge ratings. Specifically, people who are addicted to substances and who perceive an opportunity to consume their drug of choice report higher urges than do those who do not anticipate being able to use the drug. This factor was proposed to explain why those in treatment for substance dependence report urges that are about half the strength of those in nontreatment settings. The impact of perceived drug use opportunity on urge is considered from a variety of perspectives, including conditioning theories, a cognitive appraisal framework, and motivated reasoning theory. Conceptual and methodological implications of perceived drug use opportunity are addressed.

Acute Stress and Nicotine Cues Interact to Unveil Locomotor Arousal and Activity-Dependent Gene Expression in the Prefrontal Cortex

“…Reactivity to cigarette cues is stronger if a smoker believes that he or she will soon be allowed to smoke (Droungas et al 1995;Wertz and Sayette 2001). The prefrontal cortical activation to drug-associated cues is also highly influenced by perceived drug use availability (Wilson et al 2004).…”

Cocaine Cue-Induced Dopamine Release in Amygdala and Hippocampus: A High-Resolution PET [18F]Fallypride Study in Cocaine Dependent Participants

“…First, the videos contained narrative detail designed for the local milieu, and the autobiographical script would be expected to enhance these effects, but some participants might be non-responsive to the mostly impersonal cues (O'Brien et al, 1979;Staiger and White, 1991;Conklin et al, 2010). Alternatively, our low-craving participants may have had less intent to use drugs that day; active inhibition of craving can affect cue-induced appetitive states and corticolimbic activity (Wertz and Sayette, 2001;McBride et al, 2006;Volkow et al, 2010;Prisciandaro et al, 2012). Finally, recent animal studies suggest that DA responses to rewardrelated cues occur only in those subjects that imbue the cues with incentive salience; individual differences in these tendencies appear to be an inherited trait (Robinson and Flagel, 2009;Flagel et al, 2010).…”

Limbic Activation to Cigarette Smoking Cues Independent of Nicotine Withdrawal: A Perfusion fMRI Study

“…Functional MRI of cue reactivity took place 20-25 min after smoking to permit the cardiovascular effects of smoking to dissipate. Subjects were informed of the opportunity to smoke immediately after each session because the expectation of drug availability has been shown to enhance subjective craving reports and physiological responses to smoking cues (Droungas et al, 1995;Carter and Tiffany, 2001;Dols et al, 2002; although see Wertz and Sayette, 2001).…”