@article{ref1,
title="What is abnormal about addiction-related attentional biases?",
journal="Drug and alcohol dependence",
year="2016",
author="Anderson, Brian A.",
volume="167",
number="",
pages="8-14",
abstract="BACKGROUND: The phenotype of addiction includes prominent attentional biases for drug cues, which play a role in motivating drug-seeking behavior and contribute to relapse. In a separate line of research, arbitrary stimuli have been shown to automatically capture attention when previously associated with reward in non-clinical samples. <br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: Here, I argue that these two attentional biases reflect the same cognitive process. I outline five characteristics that exemplify attentional biases for drug cues: resistant to conflicting goals, robust to extinction, linked to dorsal striatal dopamine and to biases in approach behavior, and can distinguish between individuals with and without a history of drug dependence. I then go on to describe how attentional biases for arbitrary reward-associated stimuli share all of these features, and conclude by arguing that the attentional components of addiction reflect a normal cognitive process that promotes reward-seeking behavior.<br><br>Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0376-8716",
doi="10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.08.002",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.08.002"
}