Figure 2.

From the Koob perspective. Diagram showing the neurocircuitry of addiction divided heuristically into the three stages of the addiction cycle: binge/intoxication, blue; withdrawal/negative affect, red; and preoccupation/anticipation, green. The neurocircuits involved are also color-coded, with the basal ganglia, including the nucleus accumbens (NAc), dorsal striatum (DS), globus pallidum (GP) and thalamus (Thal) as key elements of the binge/intoxication stage; the extended amygdala, including the central nucleus of the amygdala (AMG), bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BNST), and a transition area in the shell of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) as key elements of the withdrawal/negative affect stage; and the frontal cortex and allocortex, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), hippocampus (Hippo), and insula (Insula) as key elements of the preoccupation/anticipation stage. Molecular, synaptic, and neurocircuitry neuroadaptations combine to render the four key elements of the transition to addiction: increased incentive salience (Koob's shortcut translation of Wise's ‘dominance for the cues that guide and motivate drug seeking over the cues that guide and motivate the seeking of the more natural pleasures of life'), decreased reward, increased stress, and decreased executive function.