# Determinants of Drug Preference in Humans

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2023 · $490,757

## Abstract

Abstract
Drug abuse remains an urgent public health problem. One way to reduce the burden of the problem is to
identify risk factors for who will develop drug use problems. The fact that only a few of the many people who
experiment with drugs progress to develop problem use suggests that individuals differ in vulnerability. One
source of variability is initial response to a drug, at both the behavioral and neural levels. Individuals vary in
their initial responses to drugs in ways that predict risk, and these individual differences in drug responses
originate, in part, in individual responses in brain function. In this project, we will study individual differences in
responses the prototypic stimulant, methamphetamine, by examining both its behavioral rewarding effects and
its actions on the brain. Individuals differ in subjective responses to methamphetamine, and preliminary
evidence indicates that these differences are related to reactivity of the reward circuit to monetary reward. In
this project, we will use fMRI to examine the responses of the striatal-frontal reward circuit to
methamphetamine, and determine how individual differences in the neural effects predict behavioral indices of
drug liking and reward. First we will obtain indices of neural activity with fMRI after methamphetamine vs
placebo: regional activation elicited by a reward task, task-related functional connectivity, and resting state
functional connectivity. Then on separate sessions we will obtain indices of the behaviorally rewarding effects
of methamphetamine: drug liking, drug (and dose) choice and attentional bias to a drug-paired stimulus.
Understanding the relation between the neural response and behavioral response to the drug will extend our
understanding of why people differ in positive responses to a stimulant drug.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10554354
- **Project number:** 5R01DA002812-40
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Harriett de Wit
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $490,757
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1981-01-01 → 2025-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10554354

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10554354, Determinants of Drug Preference in Humans (5R01DA002812-40). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10554354. Licensed CC0.

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