Ventral Striatum/Nucleus Accumbens Activation to Smoking-Related Pictorial Cues in Smokers and Nonsmokers: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

This is the first demonstration of greater VS/NAc activation in addicted smokers than nonsmokers presented with smoking-related cues using fMRI. Smokers, but not controls, demonstrated activation to SR versus N cues in a distributed reward signaling network consistent with cue reactivity studies of other drugs of abuse.