Vaping during the COVID-19 lockdown period in Belgium.

Background: Due to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Belgian government set out a range of measures to prevent the spread of the virus. One measure included closing all non-food shops, including vape shops.

Methods: A retrospective online questionnaire was used to investigate the impact of closing the vape shops on the vaping and/or smoking behavior of current vapers.

Electronic cigarettes in standard smoking cessation treatment by tobacco counselors in Flanders: E-cigarette users show similar if not higher quit rates as those using commonly recommended smoking cessation aids.

Background: This interventional-cohort study tried to answer if people who smoke and choose an e-cigarette in the context of smoking cessation treatment by tobacco counselors in Flanders are achieving smoking abstinence and how they compare to clients who opt for commonly recommended (or no) aids (nicotine replacement therapy, smoking cessation medication).

Methods: Participants were recruited by tobacco counselors. They followed smoking cessation treatment (in group) for 2 months.

Transitions from avoidance: Reinforcing competing behaviours reduces generalised avoidance in new contexts.

Generalised avoidance behaviours are a common diagnostic feature of anxiety-related disorders and a barrier to affecting changes in anxiety during therapy. However, strategies to mitigate generalised avoidance are under-investigated. Even less attention is given to reducing the category-based generalisation of avoidance.

When Less is More: Vaping Low-Nicotine vs. High-Nicotine E-Liquid is Compensated by Increased Wattage and Higher Liquid Consumption.

(1) Background: Previous research (Van Gucht, Adriaens, and Baeyens, 2017) showed that almost all (99%) of the 203 surveyed customers of a Dutch online vape shop had a history of smoking before they had started using an e-cigarette. Almost all were daily vapers who used on average 20 mL e-liquid per week, with an average nicotine concentration of 10 mg/mL. In the current study, we wanted to investigate certain evolutions with regard to technical aspects of vaping behaviour, such as wattage, the volume of e-liquid used and nicotine concentration.

IQOS vs. e-Cigarette vs. Tobacco Cigarette: A Direct Comparison of Short-Term Effects after Overnight-Abstinence.

: Research from Philip Morris International's science division on its Heat-not-Burn product IQOS focused on its chemical, toxicological, clinical, and behavioral aspects. Independent research on the experiences and behavioral aspects of using IQOS, and how it compares to e-cigarettes, is largely lacking. The current randomized, cross-over behavioral trial tried to bridge the latter gaps.

Paul Eelen: Reflections on Life and Work.

This manuscript is part of a special issue to commemorate professor Paul Eelen, who passed away on August 21, 2016. Paul was a clinically oriented scientist, for whom learning principles (Pavlovian or operant) were more than salivary responses and lever presses. His expertise in learning psychology and his enthusiasm to translate this knowledge to clinical practice inspired many inside and outside academia.

About One in Five Novice Vapers Buying Their First E-Cigarette in a Vape Shop Are Smoking Abstinent after Six Months.

: E-cigarette use is rising with the majority of vapers purchasing their e-cigarettes in vape shops. We investigated the smoking/vaping trajectories and quit-smoking success rates of smokers deciding to start vaping for the first time and buying their e-cigarette in brick-and-mortar vape shops in Flanders. : Participants filled out questionnaires assessing smoking/vaping behaviour at three moments (intake, after three and six months) and smoking status was biochemically verified using eCO measurements.

Differences between Dual Users and Switchers Center around Vaping Behavior and Its Experiences Rather than Beliefs and Attitudes.

(1) Background: Many smokers completely switch to vaping (switchers), whereas others use e-cigarettes (e-cigs) alongside tobacco cigarettes (dual users). To the extent that dual users substantially lower the number of cigarettes, they will reduce health risks from smoking. However, from a medical point of view, exclusive vaping is preferable to dual use; (2) Methods: Using an online questionnaire we assessed behavioral, cognitive and attitudinal aspects of e-cig use in smoking and ex-smoking vapers; (3) Results: Our sample consisted of 19% dual users and 81% switchers.

Online Vape Shop Customers Who Use E-Cigarettes Report Abstinence from Smoking and Improved Quality of Life, But a Substantial Minority Still Have Vaping-Related Health Concerns.

(1) Background: Characteristics and usage patterns of vapers (e-cigarette users) have mainly been studied in web-based convenience samples or in visitors of brick-and-mortar vape shops. We extended this by targeting customers of one particular online vape shop in the Netherlands; (2) Methods: Customers were questioned on their smoking history, current smoking and vaping status, reasons for vaping, perceived harmfulness, and potential health changes due to vaping; (3) Results: Almost everyone (99%, 95% CI 0.96, 1.

The Importance of Conditioned Stimuli in Cigarette and E-Cigarette Craving Reduction by E-Cigarettes.

This study examined the impact of four variables pertaining to the use of e-cigarettes (e-cigs) on cravings for tobacco cigarettes and for e-cigs after an overnight abstinence period. The four variables were the nicotine level, the sensorimotor component, the visual aspect, and the aroma of the e-cig. In an experimental study, 81 participants without prior vaping experience first got acquainted with using e-cigs in a one-week tryout period, after which they participated in a lab session assessing the effect of five minutes of vaping following an abstinence period of 12 h.

Reinstatement after human feature-positive discrimination learning.

In two experiments, using an online conditioned suppression task, we investigated the possibility of reinstatement of extinguished feature-target compound presentations after sequential feature-positive discrimination training in humans. Furthermore, given a hierarchical account of Pavlovian modulation (e.g.

One-trial overshadowing: Evidence for fast specific fear learning in humans.

Adaptive defensive actions necessitate a fear learning system that is both fast and specific. Fast learning serves to minimize the number of threat confrontations, while specific learning ensures that the acquired fears are tied to threat-relevant cues only. In Pavlovian fear conditioning, fear acquisition is typically studied via repetitive pairings of a single cue with an aversive experience, which is not optimal for the examination of fast specific fear learning.

Harmful effects from one puff of shisha-pen vapor: methodological and interpretational problems in the risk assessment analysis.

With this letter we express our concerns about the applicability of the proposed Margin of Exposure analysis as a method of risk assessment for propylene glycol and glycerol exposure from a shisha-pen type electronic cigarette. The studies used to determine the Margin of Exposure were evaluating the effects in humans or animals of continuous exposure to these chemicals in every single breath, whereas electronic cigarettes are used intermittently by consumers, resulting in lower and discontinuous exposure. Moreover, the authors make no clear distinction between irritation and harm, neither do they discuss the effects of exposure compared to continuous smoking.

Health professionals in Flanders perceive the potential health risks of vaping as lower than those of smoking but do not recommend using e-cigarettes to their smoking patients.

Background: Many misperceptions of both risks and opportunities of e-cigarettes (e-cigs) exist among the general population and among physicians, although e-cigs could be a valuable harm reduction tool for current smokers.

Methods: Two groups in Flanders, namely general practitioners (GPs; family doctors) and tobacco counselors filled out an online questionnaire with regard to their attitudes and risk perceptions concerning e-cigs. Statements included were on the safety and the addictive properties of e-cigs in absolute terms, whereas other items compared e-cigs with regular tobacco cigarettes.

Words putting pain in motion: the generalization of pain-related fear within an artificial stimulus category.

Patients with chronic pain are often fearful of movements that never featured in painful episodes. This study examined whether a neutral movement's conceptual relationship with pain-relevant stimuli could precipitate pain-related fear; a process known as symbolic generalization. As a secondary objective, we also compared experiential and verbal fear learning in the generalization of pain-related fear.

Perceptual and conceptual similarities facilitate the generalization of instructed fear.

Background And Objectives: Learned fear can generalize to neutral events due their perceptual and conceptual similarity with threat relevant stimuli. This study simultaneously examined these forms of generalization to model the expansion of fear in anxiety disorders.

Methods: First, artificial categories involving sounds, nonsense words and animal-like objects were established.

Selectivity in associative learning: a cognitive stage framework for blocking and cue competition phenomena.

BLOCKING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PHENOMENON IN THE HISTORY OF ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING THEORY: for over 40 years, blocking has inspired a whole generation of learning models. Blocking is part of a family of effects that are typically termed "cue competition" effects. Common amongst all cue competition effects is that a cue-outcome relation is poorly learned or poorly expressed because the cue is trained in the presence of an alternative predictor or cause of the outcome.

Effectiveness of the electronic cigarette: An eight-week Flemish study with six-month follow-up on smoking reduction, craving and experienced benefits and complaints.

Background: Smoking reduction remains a pivotal issue in public health policy, but quit rates obtained with traditional quit-smoking therapies remain disappointingly low. Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR), aiming at less harmful ways of consuming nicotine, may provide a more effective alternative. One promising candidate for THR are electronic cigarettes (e-cigs).

From bad to worse: Symbolic equivalence and opposition in fear generalisation.

The present study compared the impact of symbolic equivalence and opposition relations on fear generalisation. In a procedure using nonsense words, some stimuli became symbolically equivalent to an aversively conditioned stimulus while others were symbolically opposite. The generalisation of fear to symbolically related stimuli was then measured using behavioural avoidance, retrospective unconditioned stimulus expectancy and stimulus valence ratings.

Generalization of human fear acquisition and extinction within a novel arbitrary stimulus category.

Adaptive anxiety relies on a balance between the generalization of fear acquisition and fear extinction. Research on fear (extinction) generalization has focused mostly on perceptual similarity, thereby ignoring the importance of conceptual stimulus relations in humans. The present study used a laboratory procedure to create de novo conceptual categories of arbitrary stimuli and investigated fear and extinction generalization among these stimuli.

Blocking in human causal learning is affected by outcome assumptions manipulated through causal structure.

Additivity-related assumptions have been proven to modulate blocking in human causal learning. Typically, these assumptions are manipulated by means of pretraining phases (including exposure to different outcome magnitudes), or through explicit instructions. In two experiments, we used a different approach that involved neither pretraining nor instructional manipulations.

Reappraisal of threat value: loss of blocking in human aversive conditioning.

Non-specificity of fear is a core aspect of what makes anxiety disorders so impairing: Fear does not remain specific to a single stimulus paired with danger, but generalizes to a broad set of stimuli, resulting in a snowballing of threat signals. The blocking procedure can provide a valuable laboratory model for gaining insight into such threat appraisal and generalization processes. We report two experiments in which we induced selective threat appraisal by using a blocking procedure in human aversive conditioning.

Unpredictability and context conditioning: does the nature of the US matter?

Using a conditioned suppression task, we examined the minimal conditions to establish context conditioning as induced by unpredictability of an unconditioned stimulus (US). We investigated whether a biologically significant US is necessary to produce such context conditioning effects. In this between-subjects experiment, we manipulated the nature of the US and US-unpredictability.

The inertia of conditioned craving. Does context modulate the effect of counterconditioning?

Previous research (Van Gucht, Baeyens, Vansteenwegen, Hermans, & Beckers, 2010) showed that a cue, initially paired with chocolate consumption, did not cease to elicit craving for chocolate after extinction, but did so after counterconditioning (CC). CC moreover was more effective than extinction in changing evaluations, in disrupting reported cue-elicited expectancy to get to eat chocolate, and in reducing actual consumption. The present research aimed to investigate whether the advantage of CC over extinction in changing acquired craving and liking would survive a change in context after CC.

Rating data are underrated: validity of US expectancy in human fear conditioning.

Background And Objectives: Human fear conditioning is widely regarded as one of the prime paradigms for the study of fear and anxiety disorders. We provide an evaluation of a commonly used subjective measure in the human fear conditioning paradigm, namely the US-expectancy measurement.

Methods: We assess the validity of US-expectancy with respect to conditions of pathological fear and anxiety using four established criteria for scrutiny of a laboratory test or model (i.