12 h Abstinence-Induced ERP Changes in Young Smokers: Electrophysiological Evidence From a Go/NoGo Study

Two-Hour Nicotine Withdrawal Improves Inhibitory Control Dysfunction in Male Smokers: Evidence from a Smoking-Cued Go/No-Go Task ERP Study

Purpose

Nicotine withdrawal is a multifaceted physiological and psychological process that can induce a spectrum of mood disturbances. Gaining a more nuanced understanding of how pure nicotine withdrawal influences cognitive control functions may provide valuable insights for the enhancement of smoking cessation programs. This study investigated changes in inhibitory control function in smokers after 2-hour nicotine withdrawal using the event-related potential (ERP) technique.

Participants and Methods

28 nicotine dependence (ND) patients and 28 health controls (HCs) completed a smoking-cued Go/No-go task containing two different types of picture stimuli, smoking-cued and neutral picture stimuli. We analyzed the behavioral and ERP data using a mixed model Repeated Measure Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Results

No-go trials accuracy rate (ACC) at baseline (time 1) was lower in the ND group compared to HCs with smoking-cued stimuli, and No-go trials ACC after 2-hour nicotine withdrawal (time 2) was not lower in the ND group compared to HCs. When confronted with smoking-cued stimuli, the No-go trials ACC was higher in time 2 than in time 1 in the ND group. For the ERP component, the No-go N2 amplitudes in the ND group with smoking-cued stimuli were lower than that of HCs, whereas after 2-hour nicotine withdrawal, the ND group's No-go N2 amplitudes higher than that at time 1, and did not differ from that of HCs. No-go P3 amplitudes were not significantly different between the two groups.

Conclusion

Evidenced from ERP data, ND patients have an inhibitory control dysfunction in the face of smoking cues, which is mainly manifested in the early stage of response inhibition rather than in the late stage. Two-hour nicotine withdrawal improves inhibitory control dysfunction in ND patients. The No-go N2 component is an important and sensitive neuroelectrophysiological indicator of inhibitory control function in ND patients.

Effects of Smoking Social Cues on Inhibitory Control in Smokers: An Event-Related Potential Study

Objective

Reduced inhibitory control is a general characteristic of smokers and becomes increasingly pronounced in smoking-related contexts. However, research has rarely considered differences in the effects of various smoking-related cues. To fill this research gap, this study compared the effects of smoking object-related and smoking social-related cues on inhibitory control in smokers.

Methods

We used a visual Go/NoGo paradigm with three types of long-lasting backgrounds (neutral, smoking object, and smoking social background) to record the error rates, reaction times, and amplitudes of the N2 and P3 event-related potentials (ERPs) by 25 smokers and 25 non-smokers.

Results

(1) Smokers displayed smaller NoGo-N2 amplitudes than controls under the neutral background; (2) smokers displayed smaller NoGo-N2 amplitudes under the smoking social background and smoking object background than they did under the neutral background; (3) relative to neutral and smoking object backgrounds, smokers displayed higher commission error rates, shorter reaction times, and larger NoGo-P3 amplitudes under smoking social background.

Conclusion

Smoking-related stimuli impair inhibitory control in smokers, especially when these stimuli are socially related.

Electrophysiological signature of the interplay between habits and inhibition in response to smoking-related cues in individuals with a smoking habit: An event-related potential study

The rigid, stimulus-bound nature of drug seeking that characterizes substance use disorder (SUD) has been related to a dysregulation of motivational and early attentional reflexive and inhibitory reflective systems. However, the mechanisms by which these systems are engaged by drug-paired conditioned stimuli (CSs) when they promote the enactment of seeking habits in individuals with a SUD have not been elucidated. The present study aimed behaviourally and electrophysiologically to characterize the nature of the interaction between the reflexive and reflective systems recruited by CSs in individuals with a smoking habit. We measured the behavioural performance and associated event-related potentials (ERPs) of 20 individuals with a smoking habit and 20 controls, who never smoked regularly, in a modified Go/NoGo task during which smoking-related CSs, appetitive and neutral pictures, presented either in first or third-person visual perspective were displayed 250 ms before the Go/NoGo cue. We show that smoking-related cues selectively influence early incentive motivation-related attention bias (N2 after picture onset), motor readiness and behavioural inhibition (Go-P3, NoGo-P3 and Pc) of individuals with a smoking habit only when presented from a first-person visual perspective. These data together identify the neural signature of the aberrant engagement of the reflexive and reflective systems during the recruitment of an incentive habit by CSs presented as if they had been response-produced, that is, as conditioned reinforcers.

Increased resting-state alpha coherence and impaired inhibition control in young smokers

Exposure to nicotine is the first cause of entirely preventable death killing, which is commonly initiated in adolescence. Previous studies revealed the changes of electroencephalography (EEG) and inhibition control in smokers. However, little is known about the specific link between alpha coherence during the resting state and inhibition control ability in young smokers. The present study aimed to investigate inter-hemispherical and frontal-parietal alpha coherence changes and assessed the relationships between alpha coherence and inhibition control in young smokers. We collected resting-state EEG data from 23 young smokers and 24 healthy controls. Inhibition control ability was assessed by a Go/NoGo task. Compared to healthy controls, young smokers exhibited increased inter-hemispherical and frontal-parietal alpha coherence. Furthermore, young smokers committed more NoGo errors in the Go/NogGo task. It is noteworthy that alpha coherence at the frontal electrode sites was positively correlated with NoGo errors in healthy controls, whereas inverse correlations were observed in young smokers. Our findings suggested that alterations of alpha coherence may provide support to the earlier nicotine-dependence-related research findings, which may help us to understand the neuropathology of inhibitory control in young smokers.

Altered resting-state electroencephalography microstate characteristics in young male smokers

The development of nicotine addiction was associated with the abnormalities of intrinsic functional networks during the resting state in young adult smokers. As a whole-brain imaging approach, EEG microstate analysis treated multichannel EEG recordings as a series of quasi-steady microscopic states which were related to the resting-state networks (RSNs) found by fMRI. The aim of this study was to examine whether the resting-state EEG microstate analysis may provide novel insights into the abnormal temporal properties of intrinsic brain activities in young smokers. We used 64-channel resting-state EEG datasets to investigate alterations in microstate characteristics between twenty-five young smokers and 25 age- and gender-matched non-smoking controls. Four classic EEG microstates (microstate A, B, C, and D) were obtained, and the four temporal parameters of each microstate were extracted, i.e., duration, occurrence, coverage, and transition probabilities. Compared with non-smoking controls, young smokers showed decreased occurrence of microstate C and increased duration of microstate D. Furthermore, both the duration and coverage of microstate D were significantly negatively correlated with Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence (FTND) in young smoker group. The complex changes in the microstate time-domain parameters might correspond to the abnormalities of RSNs in analyses of FC measured with fMRI in the previous studies and indicate the altered specific brain functions in young smokers. Microstate D could be potentially represented as a selective biomarker for predicting the dependence degree of adolescent smokers on cigarettes. These results suggested that EEG microstate analysis might detect the deviant functions of large-scale cortical activities in young smokers and provide a new perspective for the study of brain networks of adolescent smokers.

Magnetic resonance imaging for smoking abstinence: symptoms, mechanisms, and interventions

Tobacco smoking is the leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although a number of smokers are aware of the adverse outcomes of smoking and express a strong desire to stop smoking, most smoking quit attempts end in relapse within the first few days of abstinence, primarily resulting from the aversive aspects of the nicotine withdrawal syndrome. Therefore, studying the neural mechanisms of smoking abstinence, identifying smokers with heightened relapse vulnerability prior to quit attempts, and developing effective smoking cessation treatments appear to be promising strategies for improving the success of quit attempts. In recent years, with the development of magnetic resonance imaging, the neural substrates of smoking abstinence have become extensively studied. In this review, we first introduce the psychophysiological changes induced by smoking abstinence, including affective, cognitive, and somatic signs. We then provide an overview of the magnetic resonance imaging-based evidence regarding abstinence-related functional changes accompanied by these psychophysiological changes. We conclude with a discussion of the neural markers that could predict relapse during quit attempts and a summary of the psychophysiological interventions that are currently often used to help with smoking cessation. This review extends our understanding of the role of the central nervous system in smoking abstinence.

Egalitarian Values and Sexual Behavior-The Role of Country Level Values in Shaping Individual Level Behaviors in Africa, South America and Asia

Objective The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between country level egalitarian values (broadly speaking emancipatory values/structural gender equality) and sexual behavior among youth. Methods: Comparative individual level data on sexual activity and condom use were collected from the Global School-based Student Health Survey, resulting in a final sample of 23 countries, analyzed utilizing multilevel logistic regression analysis. Results: Egalitarian values were significantly associated with sexual activity and condom use. Conclusions: Egalitarian values have a relationship with adolescents' sexual activity and condom use, and thus contribute to sexual health and well-being in Africa, South America and Asia.

Inhibiting the Whole Number Bias in a Fraction Comparison Task: An Event-Related Potential Study

Introduction

People often use heuristics derived from natural number tasks to solve fraction comparison tasks. For instance, one may falsely consider a fraction with a larger natural number to be the larger in magnitude, as in the case of 1/5 vs 1/4. We hypothesized that inhibitory control was needed to overcome this type of bias.

Methods

To test the hypothesis, Event-related potentials (ERP) were collected when participants were conducting fraction comparison tasks that designed with the negative priming paradigm. Twenty-eight adult participants performed three types of fraction comparison tasks: congruent items, incongruent items and neutral items.

Results

We found a negative priming effect in terms of response time. Consistently, ERP results demonstrated larger N1 and N2 amplitudes and a smaller P3 amplitude in the test trial than in the control trial.

Conclusion

These findings indicated that adults still need to inhibit the “larger natural number-larger fraction” misleading strategy when solving fraction comparison tasks with common components.

Two-Hour Tobacco Abstinence Has No Effect on Cognitive Control in Male Patients With Nicotine Dependence: An ERP Study

The average nicotine half-life in body tissues is 2 h. Understanding the influence of pure nicotine abstinence on cognitive control may be helpful in eliminating nicotine dependence (ND) and preventing smoking relapse. This study was to investigate the effects of 2-h tobacco abstinence on cognitive control in patients with ND. Twenty-five patients with ND completed event-related potential (ERP) P300 measurements at the normality state and the abstinence state. Twenty-five healthy controls (HCs) were measured with P300 twice with a 2-h time interval. HAMD and HAMA were used to assess the emotional state. Results showed that there were significant differences in Carbon monoxide (CO) levels between the abstinence state and the normality state in the ND group. There were no significant differences in HAMD and HAMA scores for the abstinence state in the ND group or the normality state in the ND group and the HC group. For P3a, P3b amplitude, and P3a latency, the main effect for ND group was significant. For P3a, P3b amplitude, and latency, the interaction effect for group × time point was not significant, and the main effect for time point was not significant. It concluded that patients with ND present cognitive control deficits, and 2-h tobacco abstinence has no effect on cognitive control deficits in male patients with ND. Our findings may be helpful in eliminating nicotine dependence and preventing smoking relapse.

Electrophysiological Evidence of Event-Related Potential Changes Induced by 12 h Abstinence in Young Smokers Based on the Flanker Study

The cognitive control processes may be disrupted by abstinence in smokers, which may be helpful in the development and maintenance of addictive behavior. The purpose of this study was to measure the performance of cognitive task after 12 h of smoking abstinence by using event-related potentials (ERPs), including the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe). In Eriksen flanker task, electroencephalography (EEG) signals of 24 smokers were recorded in two conditions: satiety and 12 h abstinence. In the behavioral data, both conditions exhibited more errors and more time on the incongruent trials than congruence. Meantime, the Minnesota Nicotine Withdrawal Scale (MNWS) score was increased during abstinence. Smokers showed reduced ERN and Pe after 12 h of abstinence, compared with satiety condition. The results indicate that the diminished error processing in young smokers after 12 h of abstinence. It may be related to increased withdrawal symptoms. In conclusion, the disrupted neurophysiological indexes in the general behavior monitoring system may be caused by abstinence. The results of this study may provide us with new ideas about the effects of short-term abstinence on brain cognitive neuroscience and be helpful for the solution of relapse.