Relationships among physiological and self-report responses produced by cocaine-related cues

In response to cocaine cues, 150 subjects with a history of cocaine abuse showed decreases in skin temperature and skin resistance and increases in heart rate and reported craving, high, and withdrawal responses. These responses were consistent across four years of data collection. Craving reports were not consistently associated with either high or withdrawal responses, and many subjects endorsed increases in both high and withdrawal states. Correlations revealed no pattern of association among physiological variables and responding did not differ between subjects who did and those who did not report increases in each of the drug states. Finally, physiological variables did not predict reported drug states in discriminant analyses. Cocaine cue reactivity cannot be easily related to a unitary state of high, withdrawal, or craving. It is suggested that future studies focus more on the prediction and measurement of treatment outcome than on the form of cue responses.