Individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related cues and pleasant stimuli in young smokers
Jeffrey M Engelmann1, Francesco Versace2, Jonathan C Gewirtz3
1Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States.
Background:
Decreased sensitivity to pleasant stimuli is associated with a higher vulnerability to nicotine dependence in youths and with difficulty quitting in adult smokers. Recently, we showed that smokers showing lower brain reactivity to non-cigarette-related pleasant images than to cigarette-related ones have lower chances of achieving long-term abstinence during a quit attempt.
Methods:
We tested whether individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related and pleasant stimuli require a long history of smoking to develop by measuring the late positive potential (LPP) to cigarette cues, emotional, and neutral stimuli in 45 young, light smokers (ages 18-25). k-means cluster analysis was used to partition smokers into two groups based on the magnitude of their LPPs.
Results:
Group 1 was characterized by larger LPPs to pleasant pictures than cigarette-related pictures whereas Group 2 showed the opposite pattern.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related and pleasant cues do not require a long smoking history to develop.
More Related Videos
14:21Creating Dynamic Images of Short-lived Dopamine Fluctuations with lp-ntPET: Dopamine Movies of Cigarette Smoking
Published on: August 6, 2013
09:50Impact Assessment of Repeated Exposure of Organotypic 3D Bronchial and Nasal Tissue Culture Models to Whole Cigarette Smoke
Published on: February 12, 2015
Related Concept Videos
01:29Stimulants
Cocaine can be administered via snorting, injection, or smoking. It primarily functions by blocking the reuptake of dopamine, resulting in a euphoric high characterized by an intense sensation of happiness and...
01:23Drugs Acting on Autonomic Ganglia: Stimulants
Ganglionic stimulants activate NM nicotinic receptors in autonomic ganglia, falling into two categories: nicotine mimetics [e.g., lobeline, dimethylpiperazine, tetramethylammonium] and muscarinic receptor agonists [e.g., muscarine, methacholine]. The first category's action is rapid and blocked by nicotinic receptor antagonists, while the second category's action is delayed and blocked by atropine-like agents. Nicotine, an alkaloid, affects the heart rate by stimulating...