Background-Alcoholism, like other substance abuse disorders, is a chronically relapsing condition. Compared with other abused drugs, however, little is known about the neural mechanisms mediating ethanol (EtOH)-craving and -seeking behavior leading to relapse. This study, therefore, was conducted to identify candidate brain regions that are recruited by an EtOH-associated contextual stimulus (S + ). A secondary objective was to determine whether EtOH S + -elicited neural recruitment patterns are modified by the opiate antagonist naltrexone (NTX), a compound that reduces cueinduced craving in alcoholics and attenuates ethanol seeking in animal models of relapse.