Cigarette smokers exhibit impulsive decision-making, choosing immediate reward derived from smoking despite potential long-term negative consequences. Impulsive choices on experimental tasks are also made by substance abusers and by patients with medial frontal cortex damage. Smokers also obsess about smoking, particularly during craving, i.e. smoking-related items are selected by attention. Attention selection has also been linked to medial frontal cortex. Medial frontal cortex (MFC) is a principle target of the brain's dopamine reward system, and decision-making and attention selection and their disruption in addiction have been linked to the brain's reward system. We suggest that neural hypersensitivity to reward expressed in MFC leads to both impulsive choice, i.e. the decision to smoke, and to differential attention to smoking-related stimuli in smokers. In earlier work we have used human event related potential (ERP) indices of medial frontal activity to show that impulsive individuals are more sensitive to reward while evaluating the motivational value of items and while monitoring behavioral actions. We propose to use the same designs, a passive monetary reward expectation design modeled after animal studies, and a monetary reward and punishment motivated active response task, to test if the neural reward system is more responsive in smokers, as in impulsive individuals. We will also test if a MFC reward-related attention selection ERP index is more responsive to task-irrelevant smoking cues in smokers (cue reactivity), and if smokers score higher on self-reported impulsivity. ? ? ?
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