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Alcohol and other drugs of abuse stimulate dopamine release in the ventral striatum, which includes the nucleus accumbens, a core region of the brain reward system, and reinforce substance intake. Chronic alcohol intake is associated with down-regulation of central dopamine D₂ receptors, and delayed recovery of D₂ receptor sensitivity after detoxification is positively correlated with high risk for relapse. Prolonged D₂ receptor dysfunction in the ventral striatum may interfere with a dopamine-dependent error detection signal and bias the brain reward system toward excessive attribution of incentive salience to alcohol-associated stimuli. Multimodal imaging, with the radioligand [¹⁸F]desmethoxyfallypride and positron emission tomography as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), was used to compare 11 detoxified male alcoholics with 13 healthy men. The authors measured …