Abstract: Drug dependence is a kind of psychological and mental disease whereby individuals use medicine, develop tolerance and withdrawal symptoms and whose social function is seriously and negatively affected by drug use. Working memory plays a central role in the process of modulation in the behavior of drug dependence: Based on personality vulnerability and neural sensitization, low working memory capacity can influence decision-making and inhibition, and has an affect on drug seeking behavior and tendency for relapse. However, up to this point the subjects of research in this area were individuals who were already addicted. As a consequence, the results cannot distinguish whether neural sensitization, personality vulnerability or working memory deficiency is the reason or the result of the drug dependence. In addition, previous research was conducted only from a cognition perspective and ignored the fact that drug use behaviors do not result from one single and isolated deficit and is actually influenced by many different factors, such as affective deficit and stress. Future research should focus on an integrated approach which considers emotion, cognition and personality et al.

Key words: drug dependence, working memory, decision-making, inhibition