Altered subcallosal and posterior cingulate cortex-based functional connectivity during smoking cue and mental...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Addiction Research
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Long-term smoking alters brain function, sensitizing incentive salience and conditioning contextual cues.
• Understanding nicotine's effects on brain connectivity is crucial for developing effective nicotine dependence treatments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how nicotine affects hub-based functional connectivities in affective and cognitive brain networks.
• To examine alterations in functional connectivity related to smoking cues and mental simulation in smokers versus non-smokers.

Main Methods:

• Functional MRI (fMRI) scans were performed on 30 smokers and 30 non-smokers.
• Participants mentally simulated neutral and smoking-related hand movements.
• Changes in functional connectivity of the subcallosal (SCC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were analyzed.

Main Results:

• Smokers showed cue-induced SCC connectivity changes (increased with intraparietal sulcus, decreased with medial prefrontal cortex) compared to non-smokers.
• During smoking mental simulation, PCC exhibited enhanced connectivity with the anterior insula and rostro-lateral prefrontal cortex.
• PCC-lateral prefrontal cortex connectivity strength correlated with nicotine dependence severity.

Conclusions:

• Smokers can be identified by cue-induced SCC functional connectivity alterations within default mode and dorsal attention networks.
• Nicotine dependence development may involve the coupling strength between the default mode network and the central executive network at a cognitive level.