Smoking withdrawal dynamics in unaided quitters
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Updated: Oct 17, 2026

Creating Dynamic Images of Short-lived Dopamine Fluctuations with lp-ntPET: Dopamine Movies of Cigarette Smoking
Published on: August 6, 2013
T M Piasecki1, R Niaura, W G Shadel
1Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison 53706, USA. tmp@ctri.medicine.wisc.edu
Abstract:
Considerable research shows that withdrawal severity is inconsistently related to smoking cessation outcomes. This may result from measurement problems or failure to scrutinize important dimensions of the withdrawal experience. Two recent studies demonstrated that withdrawal elevation and variations in the time course of withdrawal were related to relapse in smokers treated with the nicotine patch (T. M. Piasecki, M. C. Fiore, & T. B. Baker, 1998). This article reports a conceptual replication and extension of those findings in unaided quitters. Evidence for temporal heterogeneity was found across different types of withdrawal symptoms. Patterns or slopes of affect and urge reports over time predicted smoking status at follow-up, as did mean elevation in withdrawal symptoms. These results suggest that affect and urge withdrawal symptoms make independent contributions to relapse and that relapse is related to both symptom severity and trajectory.
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