Limbic responses to reward cues correlate with antisocial trait density in heavy drinkers.

Antisocial traits are common among alcoholics- particularly in certain subtypes. Although people with antisocial tendencies show atypical brain activation in some emotion and reward paradigms, how the brain reward systems of heavy drinkers (HD) are influenced by antisocial traits remains unclear. We used subjects' preferred alcohol drink odors (AO), appetitive (ApCO) and non-appetitive (NApO) control odors in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine if reward system responses varied as a function of antisocial trait density (ASD).

fMRI of the brain's response to stimuli experimentally paired with alcohol intoxication.

Rationale: Individuals learn associations between alcohol's sensory properties and intoxication, with such conditioned stimuli (CS) becoming involved in craving and relapse. However, these CS also carry idiosyncratic associations.

Objectives: This study aimed to test brain responses to novel CS conditioned with alcohol intoxication.