Attentional bias to smoking and other motivationally relevant cues is affected by nicotine exposure and dose expectancy.

We investigated the effects of acute nicotine dose and expected dose on attentional bias (AB) to smoking and affective cues in overnight nicotine-deprived smokers (n=51; 24 women) using a balanced placebo design, which counterbalanced given nicotine dose (Given-NIC vs. Given-DENIC) with instructed nicotine dose expectancy (Told-NIC vs. Told-DENIC).

The motivational salience of cigarette-related stimuli among former, never, and current smokers.

While smokers are known to find smoking-related stimuli motivationally salient, the extent to which former smokers do so is largely unknown. In this study, we collected event-related potential (ERP) data from former and never smokers and compared them to a sample of current smokers interested in quitting who completed the same ERP paradigm prior to smoking cessation treatment. All participants (n = 180) attended 1 laboratory session where we recorded dense-array ERPs in response to cigarette-related, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures and where we collected valence and arousal ratings of the pictures.

The effects of nicotine dose expectancy and motivationally relevant distracters on vigilance.

The imminence of drug use (i.e., drug availability) has been found to be related to intensity of drug craving, but its effects on attentional bias to drug cues are unclear.

Emotional reactivity to emotional and smoking cues during smoking abstinence: potentiated startle and P300 suppression.

Negative affect is thought to be an important factor in the maintenance of cigarette smoking, and thus it is important to further develop objective measures of smoking-related emotional responses. Nonsmokers, non abstinent smokers, and abstinent smokers participated in a cue reactivity task where eyeblink startle amplitude and startle probe P300 (P3) suppression were measured during the presentation of emotional pictures.During unpleasant pictures, the amplitude of both measures was smaller in non abstinent smokers than in nonsmokers or abstinent smokers.