Neuroimaging Attentional Impairment During Abstinence

Detailed Summary

The broad objective of this proposal is to identify functional neuroanatomical correlates of impairments in sustained attention during smoking abstinence. We will measure changes in performance and regional blood oxygenation levels using fMRI while smokers and non-smokers complete a task designed to assess sustained attention-or the continuous monitoring of stimuli. Our primary hypothesis is that smoking abstinence will result in impaired sustained attention accompanied by decreases in blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal in regions associated with sustained attention including right fronto-parietal cortex, thalamus and reticular activation system. Abstinence may also result in performance-related increases in activation in brain regions associated with effortful processing including the anterior cingulate cortex. We also hypothesize that smokers during the satiated state will exhibit brain activity more similar to that of non-smokers. In addition to task related brain responses, we will also measure changes in absolute regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and hypothesize that abstinence will result in significant decreases in regions associated with arousal (e.g., reticular activation system); information processing (e.g., thalamus); and emotional regulation (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex).

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