The orbitofrontal cortex in methamphetamine addiction: involvement in fear

We used Tellegen's Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) harm avoidance (fear) scale and the constraint superfactor as personality measures of inhibitory control and examined their association with glucose metabolism in the orbitofrontal gyrus at rest in 14 recently abstinent methamphetamine-dependent subjects and 22 comparison subjects. Higher MPQ scores were associated with higher relative orbitofrontal gyrus metabolism in the methamphetamine-dependent subjects. There was a tendency towards a negative association for the comparison subjects (test of coincidence of regression lines for the two subject groups: F = 3.3, df = 2,32; p = 0.051). These results suggest that the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in inhibitory control can be manifested in stable personality predispositions and further implicate this region in the core characteristics of drug addiction.