Pattern of craving response among smokers exposed to virtual reality

Abstract

IntroductionTobacco craving is an intense desire to smoke. Cue-induced craving is considered the main responsible for relapse after smoking cessation. Cue Exposure Treatment (CET) consists of controlled and repeated exposure to stimuli associated with substance use in order to reduce craving associated.ObjectiveTo analyze the pattern of craving response of smokers exposed to Virtual Reality environments.MethodsForty-six smokers were exposed randomly to complex virtual scenes of 6 minutes long duration with smoking related cues that reproduce typical situations where people use to smokes. Craving was assessed before each exposure and 6 times during navigation with a visual analogic scale. For this secondary analysis the evolution of craving response were explored for the environments that produced the most and the least craving responses.ResultsIn the environment that produced the highest craving level, the pattern of response remains similar after the second assessment during the exposure, that is, after two minutes. For the environment that trigger the lowest levels, the responses gradually increased during the exposure and the highest level appeared in the last craving assessment, after 6 minutes.ConclusionsThis study has several implications. In the first place, virtual reality environments are able to elicit craving. In the second, we found that differents patterns of craving response exist in response to VR environments. Furthermore, the results obtained in the present study may be useful for cessation programs that include CET, in which is it necessary to know the pattern of desire during the exposure.

Impaired Brain-Heart Relation in Patients With Methamphetamine Use Disorder During VR Induction of Drug Cue Reactivity

“…Compared with traditional drug-cue reactivity paradigms, VR advantages include immersion, flexibility and ease of integration into clinical settings and has been applied in the field of addictive disorders [4,6,7]. Specifically, complex cues embedded in VR have been demonstrated to induce a sharper and more rapid craving increase [8][9][10] and stronger attentional bias toward substance-related cues [11][12][13][14] in several substance abuse disorders [see also [6] for a review). Indeed, VR can efficiently induce drug-cue reactivity and could be used to address several problems related to substance abuse, from craving assessment to active craving treatment using cue-exposure therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy [6].…”