Abstract
OBJECTIVE: In the current study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to investigate whether tobacco addiction biases basic visual processing in favour of smoking-related images. We hypothesize that the neural representation of smoking-related stimuli in the lateral occipital complex (LOC) is elevated after a period of nicotine deprivation compared to a satiated state, but that this is not the case for object categories unrelated to smoking.
METHODS: Current smokers (≥10 cigarettes a day) underwent two fMRI scanning sessions: one after 10 h of nicotine abstinence and the other one after smoking ad libitum. Regional blood oxygenated level-dependent (BOLD) response was measured while participants were presented with 24 blocks of 8 colour-matched pictures of cigarettes, pencils or chairs. The functional data of 10 participants were analysed through a pattern classification approach.
RESULTS: In bilateral LOC clusters, the classifier was able to discriminate between patterns of activity elicited by visually similar smoking-related (cigarettes) and neutral objects (pencils) above empirically estimated chance levels only during deprivation (mean = 61.0%, chance (permutations) = 50.0%, p = .01) but not during satiation (mean = 53.5%, chance (permutations) = 49.9%, ns.). For all other stimulus contrasts, there was no difference in discriminability between the deprived and satiated conditions.
CONCLUSION: The discriminability between smoking and non-smoking visual objects was elevated in object-selective brain region LOC after a period of nicotine abstinence. This indicates that attention bias likely affects basic visual object processing.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2375–2384 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Psychopharmacology |
Volume | 234 |
Issue number | 16 |
Early online date | 21 Apr 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Aug 2017 |
Keywords
- Journal Article
- BRAIN ACTIVITY
- ACTIVATION
- PATTERN-ANALYSIS
- ATTENTIONAL BIAS
- PREFRONTAL CORTEX
- ADDICTION
- DEPENDENCE
- Nicotine deprivation
- Attention bias
- Pattern classification
- SMOKERS
- Lateral occipital complex
- Smoking cues
- LATERAL OCCIPITAL COMPLEX
- FMRI