Opiate addicts lack error-dependent activation of rostral anterior cingulate

Healthy individuals performing response suppression tasks activate anterior cingulate cortex with occurrence of false alarm error responses to nontargets. Fundamental questions include whether this error-related activation provides a signal contributing to behavioral control and, given generally poorer performance on such tasks by addicts, whether this signal is disrupted in addiction.

We used rapid, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to study 13 individuals with opiate dependence and 26 healthy control individuals performing a Go/NoGo task.

Compared with controls, opiate addicts exhibited an attenuated anterior cingulate cortex error signal and significantly poorer task performance. In controls, the individual level of event-related anterior cingulate cortex activation accompanying false alarm error positively predicted task performance, particularly sensitivity in discriminating targets from nontargets.

The attenuation of this error signal in anterior cingulate cortex may play a role in loss of control in addiction and other forms of impulsive behavior.