Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Jun 1;115(3):240-3.
doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.11.008. Epub 2010 Dec 28.

The association between frontal-striatal connectivity and sensorimotor control in cocaine users

Colleen A Hanlon  1 , Michael J Wesley, Jennifer R Stapleton, Paul J Laurienti, Linda J Porrino
Affiliations

The association between frontal-striatal connectivity and sensorimotor control in cocaine users

Colleen A Hanlon et al. Drug Alcohol Depend. .

Abstract

Background: In addition to cognitive and emotional processing dysfunction, chronic cocaine users are also impaired at simple sensorimotor tasks. Many diseases characterized by compulsive movements, repetitive actions, impaired attention and planning are associated with dysfunction in frontal-striatal circuits. The aim of this study was to determine whether cocaine users had impaired frontal-striatal connectivity during a simple movement task and whether this was associated with sensorimotor impairment.

Methods: Functional MRI data were collected from 14 non-treatment seeking cocaine users and 15 healthy controls as they performed a finger-tapping task. Functional coupling was quantified by correlating the timecourses of each pair of anatomically connected regions of interest. Behavioral performance was correlated with all functional coupling coefficients.

Results: In controls there was a significant relationship between the primary motor cortex and the supplementary motor area (SMA), as well as the SMA and the dorsal striatum during ongoing movement. Cocaine users exhibited weaker fronto-striatal coupling than controls, while the cortical-cortical coupling was intact. Coupling strength between the SMA and the caudate was negatively correlated with reaction time in the users.

Conclusions: The observation that cocaine users have impaired cortical-striatal connectivity during simple motor performance, suggests that these individuals may have a fundamental deficit in information processing that influences more complex cognitive processes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Functional coupling in motor related regions during ongoing finger-tapping. Controls and non-treatment seeking cocaine users performed a sequential finger tapping task with their dominant right hand. The timecourse of the BOLD signal was extracted from seven regions of interest that are modulated by the task (M1-primary motor cortex, SMA-supplementary motor area, ACC- anterior cingulate cortex, C-caudate, P-putamen, T-thalamus, Cb-cerebellum). Cross correlation of the time courses in each of these anatomically connected regions revealed significant relationships between several of the pairs in the controls (A, green lines, p<0.05) and cocaine users (B, green lines, p<0.05). Between group comparisons revealed a significantly lower correlation between the frontal-striatal regions in the cocaine users (B, red lines, p<0.05).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relationship between SMA-caudate coupling and reaction time in cocaine users. The line of best fit is shown (r = −0.51, p<0.05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Biswal B, Yetkin FZ, Haughton VM, Hyde JS. Functional connectivity in the motor cortex of resting human brain using echo-planar MRI. Magn Reson Med. 1995;34(4):537–41. - PubMed
    1. Breiter HC, Gollub RL, Weisskoff RM, Kennedy DN, Makris N, Berke JD, Goodman JM, Kantor HL, Gastfriend DR, Riorden JP, Mathew RT, Rosen BR, Hyman SE. Acute effects of cocaine on human brain activity and emotion. Neuron. 1997;19(3):591–611. - PubMed
    1. Cao X, Cao Q, Long X, Sun L, Sui M, Zhu C, Zuo X, Zang Y, Wang Y. Abnormal resting-state functional connectivity patterns of the putamen in medication-naive children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Brain Res. 2009;1303:195–206. - PubMed
    1. Desjardins AE, Kiehl KA, Liddle PF. Removal of confounding effects of global signal in functional MRI analyses. Neuroimage. 2001;13(4):751–8. - PubMed
    1. Dias R, Robbins TW, Roberts AC. Dissociable forms of inhibitory control within prefrontal cortex with an analog of the Wisconsin Card Sort Test: restriction to novel situations and independence from “on-line” processing. J Neurosci. 1997;17(23):9285–97. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms