title: The effects of acute abstinence from smoking and performance-based rewards on performance monitoring.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Abstinence from smoking disrupts performance in multiple cognitive domains, and such cognitive effects may serve to maintain smoking behavior. Rather than having specific effects on a narrow domain of processing, abstinence may disrupt more general cognitive control processes and/or motivation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The present study tested the prediction that overnight abstinence from smoking would disrupt a general performance monitoring system indexed via the error-related negativity (ERN). A secondary aim was to determine the extent to which performance-based monetary rewards improved the ERN among smokers and whether the effect of the reward was diminished during abstinence.
  
  
  METHODS
  The ERN was assessed during a flanker task among 25 heavy, non-treatment-seeking smokers both when smoking as usual and after overnight abstinence; reward and no-reward trial blocks occurred within each session.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As predicted, mean ERN amplitude was reduced during abstinence. The ERN was enhanced by reward; this effect did not vary with smoking abstinence.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study provides novel data which suggest that acute abstinence from smoking disrupts a neurophysiological index of a general performance monitoring system that is involved in a range of cognitive functions. The ERN may be a useful complement to narrow-band cognitive studies of abstinence and interventions designed to target cognition in addiction. Because the ERN was concurrently sensitive to abstinence and performance-based incentives, it may be particularly useful for examining the interplay of cognition and motivation in smoking and smoking cessation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 230 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY, 14260-4110, USA.
authors.forename: Nicolas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Schlienz
authors.forename: Larry W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Hawk
authors.forename: Keri S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Rosch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D012907:Smoking / Q000378:metabolism*; D016540:Smoking Cessation