The cerebellum in craving

Abstract

Craving has been considered one of the core features of addiction. It can be defined as the urge or desire to use a drug that can be elicited by the drug itself, drug-associated cues or stressors, and many authors hypothesize that it accomplishes a major role in relapse even after prolonged abstinence periods and also in the maintenance of drug seeking and taking behaviors in non-abstinent addicts. The cerebellum is a subcortical structure that has traditionally been linked to motor functions, but an increasing number of evidences show that this part of the brain is also involved in function related to cognition, such as learning and memory. Moreover, this structure shows a number of reciprocal connections with the areas in the encephalon that have been traditionally related to addiction, like the striatal-cortico-limbic system. In addition, the functional neuroimaging studies that study craving in humans systematically show cerebellar activations when this part of the brain is analyzed. Therefore, the goal of this study is to provide a quick conceptualization of craving, its assessment and the traditional neural basis of this phenomenon, and then the cerebellar activations related to craving and its underlying processes will be discussed together with the possible functions of these activations.