-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Identifying neural mechanisms associated with addiction has substantially improved the overall understanding of addictive processes. Indeed, research suggests that drug-associated cues may take advantage of neural mechanisms originally intended for emotional processing of stimuli relevant to survival. In this study, we investigated cortical responses to several categories of emotional cues (erotic, romance, pleasant objects, mutilation, sadness, unpleasant objects) as well as two types of smoking-related cues (people smoking and cigarette-related objects). We recorded ERPs from 180 smokers prior to their participation in a smoking cessation clinical trial and assessed emotional salience by measuring the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP; 400 to 600 ms after picture onset). As expected, emotional and cigarette-related pictures prompted a significantly larger LPP than neutral pictures. The amplitude of the LPP increased as a function of picture arousal level, with high-arousing erotic and mutilation pictures showing the largest response in contrast to low-arousing pleasant and unpleasant objects, which showed the smallest response (other than neutral). Compared to females, male participants showed larger LPPs for high-arousing erotic and mutilation pictures. However, unlike emotional pictures, no difference was noted for the LPP between cigarette stimuli containing people versus those containing only objects, suggesting that in contrast to emotional objects, cigarette-related objects are highly relevant for smokers. We also compared the smokers to a small (N=40), convenience sample of never-smokers. We found that never-smokers had significantly smaller LPPs in response to erotic and cigarette stimuli containing only objects compared to smokers.
International journal of psychophysiology: official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology 05/2013; · 3.05 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: IMPORTANCE Given the actions of varenicline tartrate and bupropion hydrochloride sustained-release (SR) on neurobiological targets related to affect and reward, it is thought that the modulation of nicotine withdrawal symptoms may contribute to their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE To assess the relative efficacy of varenicline and bupropion SR plus intensive counseling on smoking cessation and emotional functioning. DESIGN AND SETTING Placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial at a university medical center. PARTICIPANTS In total, 294 community volunteers who wanted to quit smoking. INTERVENTIONS Twelve weeks of varenicline, bupropion SR, or placebo plus intensive smoking cessation counseling (10 sessions, for a total of approximately 240 minutes of counseling). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Prolonged abstinence from smoking and weekly measures of depression, negative affect, and other symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. RESULTS Significant differences were found in abstinence at the end of treatment and through the 3-month postquit follow-up visit, favoring both active medications compared with placebo. At the 6-month postquit follow-up visit, only the varenicline vs placebo comparison remained significant. Varenicline use was also associated with a generalized suppression of depression and reduced smoking reward compared with the other treatments, while both active medications improved concentration, reduced craving, and decreased negative affect and sadness compared with placebo, while having little effect (increase or decrease) on anxiety and anger. No differences were noted in self-reported rates of neuropsychiatric adverse events. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In a community sample, varenicline exerts a robust and favorable effect on smoking cessation relative to placebo and may have a favorable (suppressive) effect on symptoms of depression and other affective measures, with no clear unfavorable effect on neuropsychiatric adverse events. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00507728.
JAMA psychiatry (Chicago, Ill.). 03/2013;
-
Yong Cui, Francesco Versace,
Jeffrey M Engelmann,
Jennifer A Minnix,
Jason D Robinson,
Cho Y Lam,
Maher Karam-Hage,
Victoria L Brown,
David W Wetter,
John A Dani,
Thomas R Kosten,
Paul M Cinciripini
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION: The presence of cigarette-related cues has been associated with smoking relapse. These cues are believed to activate brain mechanisms underlying emotion, attention, and memory. Electroencephalography (EEG) alpha desynchronization (i.e., reduction in alpha power) has been suggested to index the engagement of these mechanisms. Analyzing EEG alpha desynchronization in response to affective and smoking cues might improve our understanding of how smokers process these cues, and the potential impact of this processing on relapse. METHODS: Before the start of a medication-assisted cessation attempt, we recorded EEG from 179 smokers during the presentation of neutral, pleasant, unpleasant, and cigarette-related pictures. Wavelet analysis was used to extract EEG alpha oscillations (8-12 Hz) in response to these pictures. Alpha oscillations were analyzed as a function of picture valence and arousal dimensions. RESULTS: Emotional and cigarette-related stimuli induced a higher level of alpha desynchronization (i.e., less power in the alpha frequency band) than neutral stimuli. In addition, the level of alpha desynchronization induced by cigarette-related stimuli was similar to that induced by highly arousing stimuli (i.e., erotica and mutilations).Conclusions:These results suggest that, for smokers, cigarette-related cues are motivationally significant stimuli that may engage emotional, attentional, and memory-related neural mechanisms at a level comparable to that seen in response to highly arousing stimuli. This finding suggests that activation of emotional, attentional, and memory-related brain mechanisms may be an important contributor to cue-induced smoking relapse.
Nicotine & Tobacco Research 10/2012; · 2.58 Impact Factor
-
Yong Cui,
Jason D Robinson, Francesco Versace,
Cho Y Lam,
Jennifer A Minnix,
Maher Karam-Hage,
John A Dani,
Thomas R Kosten,
David W Wetter,
Victoria L Brown,
Paul M Cinciripini
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: In this study, we examined the relationship between the level of daily cigarette consumption and the startle response to affective and cigarette-related cues among treatment-seeking smokers. Before receiving any behavioral or pharmacological treatment, 136 smokers attended a baseline laboratory session, during which we recorded their reflexive eyeblink responses to acoustic startle probes while they were viewing pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, and cigarette-related pictures. We found that 1) cigarette-related and pleasant pictures similarly reduced the startle magnitude compared to neutral pictures; 2) the magnitude of startle modulation rendered by pleasant or unpleasant pictures did not differ among light, moderate, and heavy smokers; and 3) startle attenuation by cigarette-related pictures was greater in heavy smokers than in light smokers. These results suggest that similar to pleasant stimuli, cigarette-related cues are motivationally salient for smokers, and that this salience increases with nicotine dependence.
Addictive behaviors 02/2012; 37(8):885-9. · 2.25 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Reactivity to smoking-related cues may be an important factor that precipitates relapse in smokers who are trying to quit. The neurobiology of smoking cue reactivity has been investigated in several fMRI studies. We combined the results of these studies using activation likelihood estimation, a meta-analytic technique for fMRI data. Results of the meta-analysis indicated that smoking cues reliably evoke larger fMRI responses than neutral cues in the extended visual system, precuneus, posterior cingulate gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, dorsal and medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and dorsal striatum. Subtraction meta-analyses revealed that parts of the extended visual system and dorsal prefrontal cortex are more reliably responsive to smoking cues in deprived smokers than in non-deprived smokers, and that short-duration cues presented in event-related designs produce larger responses in the extended visual system than long-duration cues presented in blocked designs. The areas that were found to be responsive to smoking cues agree with theories of the neurobiology of cue reactivity, with two exceptions. First, there was a reliable cue reactivity effect in the precuneus, which is not typically considered a brain region important to addiction. Second, we found no significant effect in the nucleus accumbens, an area that plays a critical role in addiction, but this effect may have been due to technical difficulties associated with measuring fMRI data in that region. The results of this meta-analysis suggest that the extended visual system should receive more attention in future studies of smoking cue reactivity.
NeuroImage 12/2011; 60(1):252-62. · 5.89 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Chronic smoking is thought to cause changes in brain reward systems that result in overvaluation of cigarette-related stimuli and undervaluation of natural rewards. We tested the hypotheses that, in smokers, brain circuits involved in emotional processing: (i) would be more active during exposure to cigarette-related than neutral pictures; and (ii) would be less active to pleasant compared with cigarette-related pictures, suggesting a devaluation of intrinsically pleasant stimuli. We obtained whole-brain blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 35 smokers during the presentation of pleasant (erotica and romance), unpleasant (mutilations and sad), neutral, and cigarette-related pictures. Whole-brain analyses showed significantly larger BOLD responses during presentation of cigarette-related pictures relative to neutral ones within the secondary visual areas, the cingulate gyrus, the frontal gyrus, the dorsal striatum, and the left insula. BOLD responses to erotic pictures exceeded responses to cigarette-related pictures in all clusters except the insula. Within the left insula we observed larger BOLD responses to cigarette-related pictures than to all other picture categories. By including intrinsically pleasant and unpleasant pictures in addition to neutral ones, we were able to conclude that the presentation of cigarette-related pictures activates brain areas supporting emotional processes, but we did not find evidence of overall reduced activation of the brain reward systems in the presence of intrinsically pleasant stimuli.
European Journal of Neuroscience 11/2011; 34(12):2054-63. · 3.63 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Much effort has been devoted to examining the differences in postcessation affective experience between smoking abstainers and relapsers. However, little attention has been given to the affective changes of smokers who, despite their motivation to quit, fail to achieve even a brief period of abstinence. Using affect-modulated startle response and self-report questionnaires, we measured the postcessation affective changes of 115 smokers (60 men, 55 women) who participated in a laboratory investigation of affective reactivity during smoking cessation. Among our participants, 34 were abstainers (16 men, 18 women), 16 were never-quitters (8 men, 8 women), 19 were relapsers (8 men, 11 women), and 46 were controls (28 men, 18 women). We found a significant Stimulus Valence × Session × Group interaction effect on startle responses, which suggested that while abstainers, relapsers, and control exhibited the prototypical affect-modulated startle response across postcessation sessions, never-quitters displayed an atypical response pattern in which emotional pictures no longer modulated the startle response. Never-quitters also reported increasingly higher negative and lower positive affect across postcessation sessions. Using affect-modulated startle response and self-report questionnaires, this study found a significant difference in the affective reactivity between smokers who could and smokers who could not establish an initial abstinence of 24 hours.
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 10/2011; 20(2):139-50. · 2.58 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Identifying addicts with higher risk of relapse would provide the opportunity to implement individualized interventions and increase cessation success rates. Unfortunately, the ability to predict the long-term success of drug cessation treatments continues to elude researchers. We tested whether brain responses to emotional and cigarette-related pictures were predictive of the ability to abstain from smoking. Smokers interested in quitting (n = 180) participated in a smoking cessation clinical trial. Before the initiation of any treatment, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by emotional (both pleasant and unpleasant), neutral, and cigarette-related images. Cluster analysis was used to assign smokers to two groups based on the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) to the experimental stimuli. While both groups showed enhanced responses to cigarette-related cues, one group (n = 81) also showed blunted brain responses to intrinsically pleasant stimuli. Smokers in the latter group were significantly less likely to be abstinent at 10, 12 and 24 weeks after their quit date. In conclusion, using ERPs, a direct measure of brain activity, we found that smokers with blunted brain responses to intrinsically pleasant stimuli had lower rates of long-term smoking abstinence. This response offers a new biomarker for identifying smokers at higher risk of relapse and for testing the efficacy of new interventions aimed at normalizing brain reward systems' responses to intrinsically pleasant stimuli.
Addiction Biology 10/2011; 17(6):991-1000. · 4.83 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: The current study examined emotional reflex reactions of participants threatened with respiratory distress caused by imposing a resistive load at inspiration. Cues signaling threat (breathing MAY be difficult) and safe periods were intermixed while startle reflexes, heart rate, skin conductance, and facial EMG activity were measured. Compared to safe cues, threat cues elicited significant startle potentiation, enhanced skin conductance, heightened corrugator EMG changes, and pronounced "fear bradycardia" consistent with defensive activation in the context of threatened respiratory dysfunction. These data indicate that anticipating respiratory resistance activates defensive responding, which may mediate symptomatology in patients with panic and other anxiety disorders.
Psychophysiology 03/2011; 48(3):393-6. · 3.29 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: We used multimodal measurement to evaluate whether (a) nicotine dependence is associated with baseline and postquit negative affect and craving, (b) smoking relapse is associated with greater negative affect and craving than abstinence, and (c) craving is associated with negative affect. Treatment-seeking smokers were randomly assigned to either a brief behaviorally based smoking-cessation treatment condition or to a delayed treatment control condition. Participants in the treatment condition attended four assessment sessions, 4-5 days prequit (baseline), 1-2 days postquit, 3-5 days postquit, and 10-14 days postquit, while controls attended four sessions spaced over the same intervals. Retrospective questionnaires were collected at the beginning of each session, and corrugator EMG and in-session ratings were collected during viewing of affective and cigarette-related slides. The multimodal measures indicated that more dependent smokers experienced greater negative affect and craving at baseline and postquit, regardless of abstinence status. The self-report measures indicated that both relapsed and abstinent smokers reported greater negative affect and craving than control smokers. Craving was associated with negative affect across measurement modalities. These results highlight the benefits of using multimodal measures to study the impact of nicotine dependence and withdrawal on negative affect and craving.
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 02/2011; 19(1):40-52. · 2.58 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Addiction has been described as the pathological usurpation of the neural mechanisms normally involved in emotional processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs) can provide a non-invasive index of neural responses associated with the processing of emotionally relevant stimuli and serve as a tool for examining temporal and spatial commonalities between the processing of intrinsically motivating stimuli and drug cues. Before beginning a smoking cessation program, 116 smokers participated in a laboratory session in which dense-array ERPs (129 sensors) were recorded during the presentation of pictures with emotional (pleasant and unpleasant), neutral and cigarette-related content. ERP differences among categories were analyzed with use of randomization tests on time regions of interest identified by temporal principal component analysis. Both emotional and cigarette-related pictures prompted significantly more positivity than did neutral pictures over central, parietal, and frontal sites in the 452-508 ms time window. During the 212-316 ms time window, both pleasant and cigarette-related pictures prompted less positivity than neutral images did. Cigarette-related pictures enhanced the amplitude of the P1 component (136-144 ms) above the levels measured in the emotional and neutral conditions. These results support the hypothesis that for smokers, cigarette-related cues are motivationally relevant stimuli that capture attentional resources early during visual processing and engage brain circuits normally involved in the processing of intrinsically emotional stimuli.
Addiction Biology 12/2010; 16(2):296-307. · 4.83 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Research on emotional perception and learning indicates appetitive cues engage nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), whereas amygdala activity is modulated by the emotional intensity of appetitive and aversive cues. This study sought to determine patterns of functional activation and connectivity among these regions during narrative emotional imagery. Using event-related fMRI, we investigate activation of these structures when participants vividly imagine pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant scenes. Results indicate that pleasant imagery selectively activates NAc and mPFC, whereas amygdala activation was enhanced during both pleasant and unpleasant imagery. NAc and mPFC activity were each correlated with the rated pleasure of the imagined scenes, while amygdala activity was correlated with rated emotional arousal. Functional connectivity of NAc and mPFC was evident throughout imagery, regardless of hedonic content, while correlated activation of the amygdala with NAc and mPFC was specific to imagining pleasant scenes. These findings provide strong evidence that pleasurable text-driven imagery engages a core appetitive circuit, including NAc, mPFC, and the amygdala.
Human Brain Mapping 09/2010; 31(9):1446-57. · 5.88 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Dense array event-related potentials (ERPs) and memory performance were assessed following rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of emotional and neutral pictures. Despite the extremely brief presentation, emotionally arousing pictures prompted an enhanced negative voltage over occipital sensors, compared to neutral pictures, replicating previous encoding effects. Emotionally arousing pictures were also remembered better in a subsequent recognition test, with higher hit rates and better discrimination performance. ERPs measured during the recognition test showed both an early (250-350 ms) frontally distributed difference between hits and correct rejections, and a later (400-500 ms), more centrally distributed difference, consistent with effects of recognition on ERPs typically found using slower presentation rates. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that features of affective pictures pop out during rapid serial visual presentation, prompting better memory performance.
Experimental Brain Research 08/2010; 205(2):223-33. · 2.39 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Abstract Before starting a smoking cessation treatment, 51 smokers took part in a study aimed at investigating brain mechanisms associated with attention allocation. Event-related potentials to acoustic startle probes were recorded from 129 sensors during the presentation of neutral, pleasant, unpleasant, and cigarette-related pictures. Results indicated that the amplitude of the startle probe P3 component was reduced for pleasant, unpleasant, and cigarette-related conditions relative to neutral. Surface Laplacian estimates showed that sources of electrocortical activity under frontal and parietal sensors contributed to the modulation of this effect. For smokers, cigarette-related stimuli, like intrinsically motivating ones, capture attentional resources and therefore reduce the ability to process competing stimuli. The depletion of attentional resources in the presence of cigarette-related cues may contribute to the high relapse rate observed during attempts to quit smoking.
Psychophysiology 05/2010; 47(3):435-41. · 3.29 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: To compare the behavioral effects of sleep-loss sleepiness (performance impairment due to sleep loss) and sleep inertia (period of impaired performance that follows awakening), mean response latencies and number of lapses from a visual simple reaction-time task were analyzed. Three experimental conditions were designed to manipulate sleepiness and sleep-inertia levels: uninterrupted sleep, partial sleep reduction, and total sleep deprivation. Each condition included two consecutive nights (the first always a night of uninterrupted sleep, and the second either a night of uninterrupted sleep, a night when sleep was reduced to 3 h, or a night of total sleep deprivation), as well as two days in which performance was assessed at 10 different time points (08:00, 08:30, 09:00, 09:30, 10:00, 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00, and 23:00 h). From 08:00 to 09:00 h, reaction times in the partial sleep-reduction and total sleep-deprivation conditions were at a similar level and were slower than those observed in the uninterrupted sleep condition. In the same time period, the frequency of lapses in the total sleep-deprivation condition was higher than in the partial sleep-reduction condition, while this latter condition never differed from the uninterrupted sleep condition. The results indicate that both sleep inertia and sleep-loss sleepiness lead to an increase in response latencies, but only extreme sleepiness leads to an increase in lapse frequency. We conclude that while reaction times slow as a result of both sleep inertia and sleep-loss sleepiness, lapses appear to be a specific feature of sleep-loss sleepiness.
Chronobiology International 10/2008; 25(5):725-44. · 4.03 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: The temporal stability of the effects induced by the Cued Reaction Time Task (CRTT) on the orienting of attention was assessed across four weekly sessions. Benefits, costs, and validity effects were computed for each session, and the correlation coefficients between each session were calculated (interindividual stability index). Intraindividual stability indices, the percentage of individuals showing both costs and benefits or the validity effect, were also calculated. The results (based on 41 participants) show a low stability for the effects in which the neutral trials were involved (benefits and costs) but an acceptable reliability for the validity effect, especially when evaluated using the intraindividual index. To maximize the reliability of the data collected using the CRTT, the validity effect seems to be a better probe of spatial orienting of attention.
Assessment 07/2008; 15(2):145-52. · 2.01 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Event-related potentials (ERP) were measured when pleasant, neutral or unpleasant pictures were presented in the context of similarly valenced stimuli, and compared to ERPs elicited when the same pictures were viewed in an intermixed context. An early ERP component (150-300 ms) measured over occipital and fronto-central sensors was specific to viewing pleasant pictures and was not affected by presentation context. Replicating previous studies, emotional pictures prompted a larger late positive potential (LPP, 400-700 ms) and a larger positive slow wave (1-6 s) over centro-parietal sensors that also did not differ by presentation context. On the other hand, ERPs elicited when viewing neutral pictures varied as a function of context, eliciting somewhat larger LPPs when presented in blocks, and prompting smaller slow waves over occipital sensors. Taken together, the data indicate that emotional pictures prompt increased attention and orienting that is unaffected by its context of presentation, whereas neutral pictures are more vulnerable to context manipulations.
Brain Research 02/2008; 1189:145-51. · 2.73 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: Recent human functional imaging studies have linked the processing of pleasant visual stimuli to activity in mesolimbic reward structures. However, whether the activation is driven specifically by the pleasantness of the stimulus, or by its salience, is unresolved. Here we find in two studies that free viewing of pleasant images of erotic and romantic couples prompts clear, reliable increases in nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity, whereas equally arousing (salient) unpleasant images, and neutral pictures, do not. These data suggest that in visual perception, the human NAc and mPFC are specifically reactive to pleasant, rewarding stimuli and are not engaged by unpleasant stimuli, despite high stimulus salience.
Journal of Neurophysiology 10/2007; 98(3):1374-9. · 3.32 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: To investigate the effects exerted by sleep loss on specific attentive components the performance to a simple reaction time task and to a cued reaction time task were recorded at regular intervals during days following either 8 or 3 h of uninterrupted sleep. Eleven subjects took part in the experiment. The results show that, notwithstanding a general reduction of alertness produced by sleep curtailment (as indicated by the increase of reaction times in the simple reaction time task), in the cued reaction time task only the reaction times to invalidly cued targets significantly increase, while no difference is observed when attention is summoned by a valid cue. This result suggests that the mechanisms underlying orienting of attention are differentially affected by the reduction of alertness level.
Biological Psychology 04/2006; 71(3):248-55. · 3.22 Impact Factor
-
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: In this work, in order to evaluate whether autonomic differences distinguish REM sleep and NREM sleep through the whole sleeping period, statistical analysis on spectral power associated with low frequency and high frequency bands were performed on the whole polysomnographic recording, considering the sleep cycle as a unit of sleep. Our results from nine subjects show that power associated with low frequency is higher in REM sleep than in NREM sleep, while power associated with high frequency is significantly higher in NREM sleep than in REM sleep. Differences between REM sleep and NREM sleep are not of the same magnitude within the whole sleep episode and, independent of sleep stages, specific trends are observable in the autonomic control of heart rate during the night.
Biological Psychology 06/2003; 63(2):149-62. · 3.22 Impact Factor
