Effects of nicotine on emotional distraction of attentional orienting: evidence of possible moderation by dopamine type 2 receptor genotype

Abstract

Introduction Growing evidence suggests that attentional bias to, and distraction by, emotional stimuli may moderate affective states and motivation for nicotine and other drug use. Methods The present study assessed the effects of nicotine and dopamine receptor genotype on distraction by emotional pictures, during a modified spatial attention task, in 45 overnight-deprived habitual smokers. Results Relative to placebo, 14 mg nicotine patch produced shorter overall reaction times (RTs) and individuals with two dopamine type 2 receptor (DRD2) A2 alleles exhibited the greatest RT benefit from nicotine following emotionally negative pictures after the longest cue-target delay (800 ms), but benefitted least from nicotine following positive pictures after the shortest delay (400 ms). In contrast, at the shortest delay, A1 carriers did not benefit from nicotine following emotionally negative pictures but did following positive ones. Conclusions These genetic differences in the effects of nicotine on attention immediately following emotionally positive versus negative stimuli may reflect differential excitatory and inhibitory transmitter processes related to approach (reward) and avoidance (punishment) sensitivities of dopamine-related neural networks that support positive and negative affect.

Moderation of nicotine effects on covert orienting of attention tasks by poor placebo performance and cue validity

“…Specifically, in earlier reports, NRT was found to improve target detection accuracy and shorten RTs during rapid visual information processing (RVIP), depending on distractor visual field and DRD2 genotype (Gilbert et al 2005). Also, DRD2 genotype and cue-target delays predicted differential nicotine benefit following emotionally positive and negative images (Hammersley et al 2013). …”

Nicotinergic Modulation of Attention-Related Neural Activity Differentiates Polymorphisms of DRD2 and CHRNA4 Receptor Genes

“…Genotype dependent effects of nicotine were further shown for the DRD2 gene (rs#6277) with respect to working memory performance and neural activity in anterior insula and visual areas [ 21 ]. In addition, a polymorphism in the vicinity of the DRD2 gene (DRD2/ANKK1 TaqIa) that is in linkage disequilibrium with the DRD2 rs#6277 polymorphism was found to modulate the behavioural effects of nicotine in a spatial attention task with emotional distractors [ 22 ].…”