title: Individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related cues and pleasant stimuli in young smokers.
abstract: Decreased sensitivity to pleasant stimuli is associated with a higher vulnerability to nicotine dependence in youths and with difficulty quitting in adult smokers. Recently, we showed that smokers showing lower brain reactivity to non-cigarette-related pleasant images than to cigarette-related ones have lower chances of achieving long-term abstinence during a quit attempt.
  
  
  
  We tested whether individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related and pleasant stimuli require a long history of smoking to develop by measuring the late positive potential (LPP) to cigarette cues, emotional, and neutral stimuli in 45 young, light smokers (ages 18-25). k-means cluster analysis was used to partition smokers into two groups based on the magnitude of their LPPs.
  
  
  
  Group 1 was characterized by larger LPPs to pleasant pictures than cigarette-related pictures whereas Group 2 showed the opposite pattern.
  
  
  
  Our results suggest that individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related and pleasant cues do not require a long smoking history to develop.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States. Electronic address: jmengelmann@mdanderson.org.
authors.forename: Jeffrey M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Engelmann
authors.affiliation: Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center, Stephenson Cancer Center, and Department of Family & Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, United States.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Versace
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, United States.
authors.forename: Jonathan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Gewirtz
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Science, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Cinciripini
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D057181:Pleasure / Q000502:physiology*; D012907:Smoking / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology; D062789:Tobacco Products; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Addiction; Emotion; Smoking; Young adults