Affiliation:
1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Arkansas for Medical Science, Little Rock, AR
2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Durham, NC
Abstract
Abstract
Introduction
This study investigated the effects of nicotine/tobacco on neural activation during performance of a monetary incentive delay task.
Aims and Methods
Prior to each scan, nonsmokers received nicotine or placebo nasal spray, and smokers were smoking satiated or 24-hour withdrawn. During the scan, participants made timed responses to reward-related cues and received feedback. Parameter estimates from cue- and feedback-related activation in medial prefrontal regions and the nucleus accumbens were extracted and underwent within- and between-group analyses. Smokers’ nicotine dependence severity was included as a continuous predictor variable for neural activation.
Results
Among smokers (n = 21), withdrawal decreased cue-related activation in the supplementary motor area and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the difference in activation (satiety > withdrawal) in these regions negatively correlated with nicotine dependence severity (Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence). Among nonsmokers (n = 22), nicotine increased the difference in nucleus accumbens activation between rewarded and nonrewarded feedback phases. Tobacco withdrawal and acute nicotine also had widespread effects on activation throughout the brain during the feedback phase.
Conclusions
Acute nicotine in nonsmokers may have increased the salience of feedback information, but produced few effects on reward-related activation overall, perhaps reflecting nicotine’s modest, indirect effects on reward processing. Conversely, tobacco withdrawal decreased activation compared with satiety, and this difference between conditions correlated with nicotine dependence severity. This suggests that as smokers become more dependent on nicotine, tobacco withdrawal has a more pronounced effect on reward processing.
Implications
Relative to the acute effects of nicotine in nonsmokers, withdrawal from daily tobacco use had more significant effects on reward-related brain activation. This study suggests that the effects of tobacco withdrawal on reward-related brain function interact with subjects’ level of nicotine dependence severity. These are potentially important sources of variability that could contribute to smoking cessation outcomes.
Funder
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institutes of Health
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Cited by
7 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献