For example, amphetamine and cocaine abusers performed worse on verbal memory,

abstraction ability, and on mathematic skills check details compared with matched alcohol and polydrug abusers (Block et al. 2002). Moreover, amphetamine abusers were more impaired in planning ability (Ersche et al. 2006) and decision making (Rogers et al. 1999) than opiate abusers. Finally, a recent study showed that abstinent polysubstance abusers with cocaine as their primary Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical drug of choice were more impaired on measures of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and working memory than abstinent polysubstance abusers with heroin as their primary drug of use (Verdejo-Garcia and Perez-Garcia Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 2007). The aim of the present review is to summarize and integrate the existing literature on the neuroanatomical substrates associated with neuropsychological impairments in stimulant dependence. The review is organized according to the various neuropsychological functions that are considered relevant for the development and/or maintenance of drug dependence and involves several distinct neural circuits (e.g., Volkow et al. 2004): Reward and punishment processing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (Section 1); Cue-reactivity and attentional bias (Section 2); Impulsivity (Section 3); and Decision making and executive function (Section 4). Each

section starts with a brief description of the neuropsychological function with commonly used tasks followed by behavioral data from these neuropsychological tasks in stimulant abusers (SAs) compared to healthy controls (HCs), Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and completed by a summary

and discussion of functional neuroimaging studies in SAs compared to HCs. Literature Search A literature search was performed using Pubmed and Embase until June 2011 with the key search terms including the neuropsychological tasks, cocaine-related disorders, amphetamine related disorders, substance Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical related disorders, tobacco use disorders, N-methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine, caffeine, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET). Functional MRI (fMRI) uses blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast to visualize differences in regional brain activity, a technique with much higher temporal and higher spatial resolution than PET. Before the introduction of fMRI, [15O] PET these was widely used to perform activation studies due to the relatively short half-life of 15O (122 s), permitting repeated task versus baseline scans during a single session. In contrast, the 18F-tracer fluorodeoxyglucose has a much longer half-life (about 110 min) and is therefore primarily used for resting-state studies. The latter were omitted from this review, as were single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) studies. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies were also excluded, because of inherent poor spatial resolution.