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Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study.

ABSTRACT: Attentional bias for drug-related stimuli, as measured by emotional Stroop (ES) tasks, is predictive of treatment outcomes for tobacco smoking and other abused drugs. Characterizing relationships between smoking-related attentional bias and brain reactivity to smoking images may help in identifying neural substrates critical to relapse vulnerability. To this end, we investigated putative relationships between interference effects in an offline smoking ES task and functional MRI (fMRI) measures of brain reactivity to smoking vs neutral images in women smokers. Positive correlations were found between attentional bias and reactivity to smoking images in brain areas involved in emotion, memory, interoception, and visual processing, including the amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, insula, and occipital cortex. These findings suggest that smokers with elevated attentional biases to smoking-related stimuli may more readily shift attention away from other external stimuli and toward smoking stimuli-induced internal states and emotional memories. Such attentional shifts may contribute to increased interference by smoking cues, possibly increasing relapse vulnerability. Treatments capable of inhibiting shifts to drug cue-induced memories and internal states may lead to personalized tobacco dependence treatment for smokers with high attentional bias to smoking-related stimuli.

SUBMITTER: Janes AC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2955848 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study.

Janes Amy C AC Pizzagalli Diego A DA Richardt Sarah S Frederick Blaise de B Bde B Holmes Avram J AJ Sousa Jessica J Fava Maurizio M Evins A Eden AE Kaufman Marc J MJ

Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 20100811 12

Attentional bias for drug-related stimuli, as measured by emotional Stroop (ES) tasks, is predictive of treatment outcomes for tobacco smoking and other abused drugs. Characterizing relationships between smoking-related attentional bias and brain reactivity to smoking images may help in identifying neural substrates critical to relapse vulnerability. To this end, we investigated putative relationships between interference effects in an offline smoking ES task and functional MRI (fMRI) measures o ...[more]

PMID: 20703221

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Project description:IntroductionTheory and data suggest that attentional bias (AB) to drug-related cues should be associated with craving when smoking motivation is high, and that AB should be predictive of drug use when immediate use is possible. The current study is the first to test these propositions in smokers in a controlled laboratory environment.Aims and methodsNinety daily smokers were randomly assigned to a high smoking motivation (nicotine-deprived and/or smoking cue exposure) or low smoking motivation (non-deprived and/or control cue exposure) condition. Participants engaged in an AB task in which they viewed smoking and matched control pictures while their eye movements were continuously monitored. Participants were then given the option to smoke, and latency to first puff and number of puffs were coded.ResultsHigh motivation smokers had significantly higher urges to smoke (p < .001) and shorter latencies to smoke (p = .001) than low motivation smokers, but AB measures (ie, dwell time and initial fixation bias scores) and number of puffs did not differ across groups (ps > .45). As predicted, the association between dwell time bias scores and urge to smoke was stronger in the high (r = .47) than low (r = .18) smoking motivation condition, but this difference failed to reach significance (p = .068). Contrary to predictions, neither AB measure was significantly associated with smoking behavior (SB). Internal reliability was excellent for dwell time bias scores (alpha = .90) but very low for initial fixation bias scores (alpha = .20).ConclusionsMaintenance of attention on drug-related cues may be a valid index of incentive motivation. Importantly, however, these dwell time bias scores were not predictive of actual SB.ImplicationsThis study tested key predictions made by theoretical accounts of addiction that emphasize AB to drug-related cues as fundamental components of the development and maintenance of drug use. Namely, this is the first experimental study in smokers to test whether AB to smoking-related cues is associated with craving when smoking motivation is high and whether AB predicts SB assessed immediately after the AB task. As predicted, the association between AB and craving was stronger in smokers randomly assigned to a high rather than a low smoking motivation condition. Contrary to predictions, AB did not predict SB.

Project description:The attention of drug-dependent persons tends to be captured by stimuli associated with drug consumption. This involuntary cognitive process is considered as attentional bias (AB). AB has been hypothesized to have causal effects on drug abuse and drug relapse, but its underlying neural mechanisms are still unclear. This study investigated the neural basis of AB in abstinent heroin addicts (AHAs), combining event-related potential (ERP) analysis and source localization techniques. Electroencephalography data were collected in 21 abstinent heroin addicts and 24 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) during a dot-probe task. In the task, a pair of drug-related image and neutral image was presented randomly in left and right side of the cross fixation, followed by a dot probe replacing one of the images. Behaviorally, AHAs had shorter reaction times (RTs) for the congruent condition compared to the incongruent condition, whereas this was not the case in the HCs. This finding demonstrated the presence of AB towards drug cues in AHAs. Furthermore, the image-evoked ERPs in AHAs had significant shorter P1 latency compared to HCs, as well as larger N1, N2, and P2 amplitude, suggesting that drug-related stimuli might capture attention early and overall require more attentional resources in AHAs. The target-related P3 had significantly shorter latency and lower amplitude in the congruent than incongruent condition in AHAs compared to HCs. Moreover, source localization of ERP components revealed increased activity for AHAs as compared to HCs in the dorsal posterior cingulate cortex (dPCC), superior parietal lobule and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) for image-elicited responses, and decreased activity in the occipital and the medial parietal lobes for target-elicited responses. Overall, the results of our study confirmed that AHAs may exhibit AB in drug-related contexts, and suggested that the bias might be related to an abnormal neural activity, both in early and late attention processing stages.

Dataset Information

Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study.

Publications

Neural substrates of attentional bias for smoking-related cues: an FMRI study.

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