arXiv subjects

Leonie Koban

Publications and source records attributed to Leonie Koban.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The Neurobiological Craving Signature (NCS) predicts social craving and responds to social isolation

Humans are inherently social and seek connection with others for survival. Recent studies suggest that acute social isolation leads to craving for social interactions, but the brain mechanisms of social craving and their relationship to brain networks underlying drug and food craving remain incompletely understood. Here we harnessed an existing dataset and tested whether the Neurobiological Craving Signature (NCS)-a recently developed fMRI-based brain-signature of drug and food craving-also predicts social craving. During fMRI, participants rated their craving for images of food, social interactions, and flowers in three different sessions: after 10h of fasting from food, 10h of social isolation, or neither (baseline; order of sessions counterbalanced). The NCS significantly predicted self-reported craving for food and social cues but not flower cues. Further, NCS responses to food were higher after fasting compared to baseline, and higher for social cues after social isolation compared to baseline, demonstrating its responsiveness to both food and social deprivation. These findings resonate with recent work showing shared brainstem circuits for hunger and social isolation, and indicate shared whole-brain circuits for social, food, and drug craving. They open new avenues for testing the NCS across different primary rewards, for assessing the consequences of their deprivation, and for examining how social deprivation-such as loneliness and isolation-interacts with overeating and drug use.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2026

Hippocampus mediates conceptual generalization of pain modulation

Pain is strongly influenced by expectations and learning from previous experience, such as in classical conditioning. Conditioned responses and expectations can generalize to perceptually and conceptually related cues, but how generalization influences pain experience and the neurobiological processing of pain remains unclear. We used fMRI and multilevel mediation analyses to address this question. Thirty-six human participants first learned to associate two visual cues from distinct conceptual categories (e.g., animals vs. vehicles) with high or low levels of heat pain. In a subsequent phase, they were presented novel cues (images, drawings, or words) not previously paired with pain, but which shared the conceptual category of the initial pain-predictive cues. Participants who developed explicit expectations during learning reported greater pain in response to stimuli conceptually related to high-vs. low-pain cues ('generalization stimuli'), demonstrating generalization of cue influences on pain. This effect was mediated by increased pain-related activity to generalization stimuli in the hippocampus, which correlated with individual differences in cue-evoked expectations. A broader network, including areas of the default mode network and striatum, also contributed to conceptual generalization of pain modulation, while threat-related regions such as the amygdala responded to generalization stimuli but did not mediate effects on pain ratings. These findings extend our understanding of expectancy-driven pain modulation by showing how conceptual processes can influence pain and its neurobiological substrates, offering new insight into placebo effects and maladaptive learning in chronic pain.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2026

Responses of the Neurobiological Craving Signature to smoking versus alternative social rewards predict craving and monthly smoking in adolescents

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable mortality worldwide. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the development of tobacco addiction due to ongoing brain maturation and susceptibility to social influences, such as exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Craving -the strong desire to use drugs -already emerges with non-daily tobacco use and predicts continued use and relapse. However, the roles of craving and ETS exposure during the early stages of tobacco use in adolescence remain poorly understood. In this pre-registered study, we harness a recently developed fMRI marker of craving -the Neurobiological Craving Signature (NCS) -to compare craving-related brain responses to smoking versus social cues in adolescent Experimental Smokers (N=100) and Non-smokers (N=48) with varying levels of ETS exposure levels. Results showed that NCS responses to smoking cues compared to alternative social rewards were higher in Experimental Smokers compared to Non-smokers and predicted individual differences in self-reported craving and monthly smoking. Both smoking behavior and NCS responses were correlated with the relative amount of ETS exposure from peers compared to exposure from family members. Together, these findings indicate a heightened sensitivity of craving-related brain circuits already during experimental smoking and highlight the important role of peer social norms on craving and smoking initiation in the critical period of adolescence.

q-bio.NC↗