Background Less than 10% of smokers attempting cessation will successfully quit. Multiple brain circuits have been implicated in the Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome (NWS), including cognitive, affective and reward processing. Methods Functional-MRI of Parametric Flanker Task (PFT) and Emotional Faces Task (EFT), and data from a Probabilistic Reward Task (PRT) and the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale (WSWS) were acquired during smoking (T1), at acute abstinence (∼48h, T2), and after 12-days of e-cigarette smoking (T3). Nicotine/cotinine levels were measured at T1 and T3. We extracted ROIs for the EFT (bilateral Fusiform, Amygdala, right Inferior Frontal) and the PFT (Superior-Inferior Parietal, left Precuneus, right Middle Cingulate) from a voxel-wise linear mixed-effects modeling analysis on 68 subjects dropped-out after T2. Changes across sessions in task-activation, PFT performance, and WSWS scores, reward/punishment sensitivity and learning rate (extracted from a reinforcement learning computational model) were evaluated in 28 subjects (pre-registration: https://osf.io/xy26j/). Results Although cotinine levels were reduced during e-cigarette smoking (p<0.001), NWS symptoms were increased at T2 and reduced at T3 (all p’s<0.05). Greater changes in reward sensitivity were observed between T1-T3 vs. T1-T2 (p=0.04). EFT-activation show no effect of e-cigarette smoking vs. T1. When comparing changes in PFT-activation during e-cigarette (T1-T3) vs. abstinence (T1-T2), precuneus showed a significant difference in activation (p=0.04); also, PFT performance was impaired at both T2 (p=0.0014) and T3 (p=0.04) vs. T1. Conclusions Partial nicotine replacement exerted positive effects on NWS, affective and reward processing, although seems to not be sufficient for cognitive alterations. Combination strategies including e-cigarette may be a first step towards smoking cessation.
P36. Partial Nicotine Replacement: A First Step Towards Smoking Cessation? Evidence From a Smoking Cessation Protocol
Montemitro, Chiara
Primo
;
2022
Abstract
Background Less than 10% of smokers attempting cessation will successfully quit. Multiple brain circuits have been implicated in the Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome (NWS), including cognitive, affective and reward processing. Methods Functional-MRI of Parametric Flanker Task (PFT) and Emotional Faces Task (EFT), and data from a Probabilistic Reward Task (PRT) and the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale (WSWS) were acquired during smoking (T1), at acute abstinence (∼48h, T2), and after 12-days of e-cigarette smoking (T3). Nicotine/cotinine levels were measured at T1 and T3. We extracted ROIs for the EFT (bilateral Fusiform, Amygdala, right Inferior Frontal) and the PFT (Superior-Inferior Parietal, left Precuneus, right Middle Cingulate) from a voxel-wise linear mixed-effects modeling analysis on 68 subjects dropped-out after T2. Changes across sessions in task-activation, PFT performance, and WSWS scores, reward/punishment sensitivity and learning rate (extracted from a reinforcement learning computational model) were evaluated in 28 subjects (pre-registration: https://osf.io/xy26j/). Results Although cotinine levels were reduced during e-cigarette smoking (p<0.001), NWS symptoms were increased at T2 and reduced at T3 (all p’s<0.05). Greater changes in reward sensitivity were observed between T1-T3 vs. T1-T2 (p=0.04). EFT-activation show no effect of e-cigarette smoking vs. T1. When comparing changes in PFT-activation during e-cigarette (T1-T3) vs. abstinence (T1-T2), precuneus showed a significant difference in activation (p=0.04); also, PFT performance was impaired at both T2 (p=0.0014) and T3 (p=0.04) vs. T1. Conclusions Partial nicotine replacement exerted positive effects on NWS, affective and reward processing, although seems to not be sufficient for cognitive alterations. Combination strategies including e-cigarette may be a first step towards smoking cessation.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
