A smoking-related background helps moderate smokers to focus: An event-related potential study using a Go-NoGo task

Cognitive impairment is a major component in addiction. However, research has been inconclusive as to whether this is also the case for smokers. The present study aims at providing electrophysiological clue for altered inhibitory control in smokers and at investigating whether reduced inhibition was more pronounced during exposure to a smoking cue.

ERPs were recorded during a visual Go-NoGo task performed by 18 smokers and 23 controls, in which either a frequent Go signal (letter "M") or a rare No-Go signal ("letter W") were superimposed on three different long-lasting background contexts: black-neutral, smoking-related and non smoking-related.

(1) Smokers performed worse and had an earlier NoGo-N2 latency as compared to controls and independently of context, suggesting a general inhibition impairment; (2) with smoking-related backgrounds specifically, smokers made fewer mistakes than they did in other contexts and displayed a larger NoGo P3 amplitude.

These data might suggest that background cues related to addiction may help smokers to be more accurate in an inhibition task.

Our results show the classical inhibitory impairment in smokers as compared to non-smokers. However, our data also suggest that a smoking-related background may bolster the inhibitory ability of smokers specifically.