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. 2025 Jun 5:19:1545176.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1545176. eCollection 2025.

Inhibitory control in addictive behaviors: is there room for memory suppression?

Eduardo López-Caneda  1 , Natália Almeida-Antunes  2
Affiliations

Inhibitory control in addictive behaviors: is there room for memory suppression?

Eduardo López-Caneda et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .
No abstract available

Keywords: addictive behaviors; cognitive training; inhibitory control; memory suppression; substance use disorders (SUDs).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Graphical representation illustrating the role of drug-related memories and memory suppression in the addiction cycle. (A) According to the neurobiological model of addiction (Koob and Volkow, 2010), the transition from initial voluntary drug use to compulsive drug-seeking behavior unfolds through a spiraling cycle of three stages—binge/intoxication, withdrawal/negative affect, and preoccupation/anticipation. In the preoccupation/anticipation stage, drug-related memories become increasingly salient, contributing to intrusive thoughts, strong craving, and heightened reactivity to substance-related cues. These processes are compounded by impaired executive control—particularly dysfunctions in prefrontal regions—undermining not only the ability to inhibit drug-seeking behavior but also the capacity to suppress recurrent, intrusive substance-related thoughts via the memory suppression circuit. (B) The conceptual framework of the preoccupation/anticipation stage closely aligns with the Elaborated Intrusion (EI) Theory of Desire (Kavanagh et al., ; May et al., 2015). According to this theory, craving is triggered when an initial intrusive thought—often a brief, automatic cognitive or sensory representation of the substance—emerges into consciousness. These intrusions are typically reactivated by internal (e.g., affective states, bodily sensations) or external cues (e.g., environments, people, or images associated with previous drug use), as illustrated in the photograph on the left, in part A, and are then progressively elaborated into vivid, emotionally charged mental images, often reflecting episodic memories—such as toasting with a beer at a party with friends [as depicted in (B.1)]. Once elaborated, such memory episodes may evoke wanting—that is, an incentive-driven motivational desire (Robinson and Berridge, ; Berridge and Robinson, 2016)—which manifests as heightened reactivity to substance-related cues and increased salience of drug-associated goals (B.2). This may, in turn, escalate into craving (B.3), experienced as an intense, reward-seeking urge that captures attention, biases decision-making, and promotes substance-seeking behavior—ultimately reinforcing the memory-craving relapse cycle. Enhancement of memory suppression capacities could eventually reduce the accessibility and impact of drug-related intrusions, thereby weakening craving episodes and lowering the risk of relapse (B.4). Photographs were obtained from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Public Domain Photo Database of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (left image), and from the Galician Beverage Picture Set (López-Caneda and Carbia, ; right image). ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; AMY, amygdala; EC, entorhinal cortex; dlPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; Hippo, hippocampus; PHC, parahippocampal cortex; PFC, prefrontal cortex; Prh, perirhinal cortex.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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