Grant: CIHR Fellowship

The majority of individuals try potentially addictive drugs (i.e., nicotine) at some point in their lives, but only a few of these individuals move from recreational use to compulsive, excessive, escalating and relapsing drug use that characterizes addiction. Experimental and clinical evidence suggests that cues or stimuli associated with drug taking (i.e., pipe) can themselves acquire motivational properties because they predict drug reward. Notably, there are significant individual differences in the degree to which cues can trigger motivation for a drug in humans and in preclinical (rodent) models. Drugs do not only affect motivational circuits, but also have profound effects on executive function and attentional control. In the current project, we propose to investigate the link between motivational and cognitive control systems that are relevant for addiction. In doing so, we begin to integrate typically unrelated research by investigating neurobiological mechanisms underlying variation in attentional processing of drug cues and its role in vulnerability to drug addiction. We hypothesize that poor cognitive control and attention bias toward drug cues are traits expressed by individuals vulnerable to addiction. To test this hypothesis, we will determine whether individuals that attribute incentive value to drug cues exhibit limited attentional capacity and poor top-down control. Moreover, we will investigate the neurobiological mechanisms mediating poor top-down control by monitoring neurochemical changes, and manipulating the prefrontal attention circuit in task-performing animals using neuropharmacology and optogenetics. The data generated from this proposal will significantly advance our understanding of how incentive cues capture our attention to exert such a powerful effect over behaviour. Our research will advance therapeutic strategies designed to limit the allocation of attention for processing drug cues and inhibit cue-induced relapse to drug use.