The motivational salience of cigarette-related stimuli among former, never, and current smokers.

Abstract

While smokers are known to find smoking-related stimuli to be motivationally salient, the extent to which former smokers do so is largely unknown. In this study, we collected event-related potential (ERP) data from former and never smokers and compared them to a sample of current smokers interested in quitting who completed the same ERP paradigm prior to smoking cessation treatment. All participants (n = 180) attended one laboratory session where we recorded dense-array ERPs in response to cigarette-related, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures, and where we collected valence and arousal ratings of the pictures. We identified three spatial and temporal regions of interest, corresponding to the P1 (120-132 ms), early posterior negativity (EPN; 244-316 ms), and late positive potential (LPP; 384-800 ms) ERP components. We found that all participants produced larger P1 responses to cigarette-related pictures compared to the other picture categories. With the EPN component, we found that, similar to pleasant and unpleasant pictures, cigarette-related pictures attracted early attentional resources, regardless of smoking status. Both former and never smokers produced reduced LPP responses to cigarette-related and pleasant pictures compared to current smokers. Current smokers rated the cigarette-related pictures as being more pleasant and arousing than the former and never smokers. The LPP and picture rating results suggest that former smokers, like never smokers, do not find cigarette-related stimuli to be as motivationally salient as current smokers.

Individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related cues and pleasant stimuli in young smokers

“…Instead, we found that non-smokers showed significantly larger LPPs to cigarette-related cues than to neutral cues. This is not necessarily surprising, as this pattern of results has been previously observed in our laboratory (Deweese et al, 2016; Robinson et al, 2015) and elsewhere (Littel et al, 2012). The LPP is considered a measure of emotional arousal (Cuthbert et al, 2000).…”

“…Alternatively, our passive picture-viewing paradigm may not be as sensitive to abstinence manipulations as are the active tasks used in other studies (Beaver et al, 2011; Fedota et al, 2015). Furthermore, 24 h of nicotine deprivation may be insufficient to produce reliable abstinence effects using this task, whereas data from our laboratory show that extended abstinence may have resulted in changes in the LPP (Robinson et al, 2015). …”

“…The time window for the LPP was determined empirically using a permutation-based statistical testing approach similar to that used previously in our laboratory (Robinson et al, 2015; Versace et al, 2011) and elsewhere (Maris, 2004). First, we built a permutation distribution associated with the hypothesis of interest (i.e., the effect of picture category on the LPP).…”

Reduced processing of alcohol cues predicts abstinence in recently detoxified alcoholic patients in a three-month follow up period: An ERP study

“…Repeated drug use produces a massive release of dopamine, inducing the sensitization of this brain system, leading to an increased drug wanting, in turn inducing excessive control of behavior by drug-related incentive stimuli. We could make the hypothesis that the decreased salience of addictionrelated stimuli in ex-addicted found in the studies cited above [78][79][80], and in alcohol-abstainers patients in the present study could indicate a normalization or a decrease of the attribution of incentive salience through the resumption of normal or diminished dopamine release in response to addiction cues. The occurrence of this phenomenon in some patients would protect them from a return to the addicted state.…”

“…And yet, data from Littel and colleagues suggest, identically to ours, that pictures associated with alcohol generate a decrease in the amplitude of the P3 component in these abstinent patients compared to controls. Two other studies have shown that exsmokers, exhibited significantly lower P3 and LPP (late positive potential) wave amplitudes in response to images related to cigarette smoking compared to those of current smokers [79,80], which also suggest that former (abstinent) smokers do not find cigarette-related cues to be as motivationally salient as present smokers.…”