Self-control, negative affect and neural activity during effortful cognition in deprived smokers

The vast majority of attempts to quit smoking cigarettes are unsuccessful. Negative affect (NA) is one of the primary factors contributing to smoking relapse, in part because it interferes with psychological processes that are essential for self-regulation and coping. Converging evidence suggests that NA may be less of a problem for smokers with high relative to low dispositional self-control, but very little is known about the mechanisms that underlie this effect. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to address this issue by examining the associations between trait self-control, state levels of NA and patterns of brain activation in nicotine-deprived smokers (n = 117) during the performance of a verbal n-back paradigm (a task requiring cognitive processes that support self-regulation). While the activation of several brain regions linked to executive control correlated positively and negatively with state NA and trait self-control, respectively, an interaction between these factors was identified in only one region: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). We conclude that the functions supported by the vmPFC are an important source of variability in smokers' self-regulatory functioning and propose that the region may contribute to the use of implicit forms of self-control under demanding circumstances.