Double jeopardy: Comorbid obesity and cigarette smoking are linked to neurobiological alterations in inhibitory control during smoking cue exposure

Abstract

Obesity and cigarette smoking are two of the leading preventable causes of death in the United States. Research suggests that overlapping pathophysiology may contribute to obesity and nicotine use disorder (NUD), yet no studies have investigated the effect of obesity on neural response to reward stimuli in NUD. This study used arterial spin-labeled perfusion functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural responses during exposure to smoking versus nonsmoking cues in 79 treatment-seeking participants with NUD, 26 with normal weight, 28 with overweight, and 25 with obesity. Given that deficits in behavioral inhibitory control have been associated with both obesity and NUD, participants completed an affectcongruent Go/NoGo task to assess the effect of body mass index (BMI) on this construct in NUD. Analyses revealed that BMI was negatively associated with activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in response to smoking cues, with significantly reduced response in smokers with overweight and smokers with obesity compared with normal-weight smokers. In addition, greater commission errors on the Go/NoGo task were correlated with reduced neural response to smoking cues in the right dlPFC only among those with obesity. Together, these findings provide evidence that obesity in treatment-seeking NUDs is related to neurobiological alterations in inhibitory control over cue-potentiated behaviors, suggesting that smoking cessation may be more difficult in individuals with comorbid NUD and obesity than in those without, requiring treatment strategies tailored to meet their unique needs.

Parental Education and Youth Inhibitory Control in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study: Blacks’ Diminished Returns

“…An extreme example of a disorder with impaired IC is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [3]. Low IC is associated with a wide range of outcomes such as obesity, food choices, eating disorders, school performance, peer preferences, externalizing behaviors, aggression, prosocial behaviors, sexual debut, and use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Low IC may be one of the reasons why youth from low socioeconomic status (SES) and racial and ethnic minority groups engage in more risky behaviors, compared to high SES and majority youth [1,[13][14][15][16].…”

Efficacy of single-session transcranial direct current stimulation on addiction-related inhibitory control and craving: a randomized trial in males with Internet gaming disorder

“…[15][16][17] Considerable neuroimaging evidence in addictions has demonstrated that such impairment is involved with relative hypoactivation of the prefrontal cortex (e.g., the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC]). [18][19][20] Moreover, some studies have shown that enhanced inhibitory control over cocaine-related distractors is associated with increased activation in the right prefrontal cortex. 21 However, very few empirical studies have examined whether increasing activation of the dlPFC via anodal tDCS enhances inhibitory control over addictionrelated distractors.…”

“…33 Such phenomena have been shown to be common neural alter ations across addictions. 15,20 Third, unlike substance addictions, IGD does not have complicating drug-on-brain effects, likely making the study of the cognitive mechanisms that under lie tDCS interventions less confounded. Fourth, although tDCS has been explored in preliminary studies in substance addictions, its efficacy remains to be examined in IGD.…”

Identifying Internet Addiction and Evaluating the Efficacy of Treatment Based on Functional Connectivity Density: A Machine Learning Study

“…The IFC and DLPFC, responsible for inhibiting response habits and impulsive behavior, are acknowledged as key components of the reflecting system. Impairments in the IFC and DLPFC are thought to be directly related to uncontrolled drug abuse (Ely et al, 2020;Qian et al, 2020), and the stimulation of these regions was demonstrated to be effective in relieving addictive symptoms (Chen et al, 2020b;Newman-Norlund et al, 2020). In IA, a close association between the dysfunction of IFC and DLPFC and the uncontrolled online playing has also been demonstrated (Dong et al, 2020).…”