McLean Imaging Center, McLean Hospital, 115 Mill St., Belmont, MA, 02478, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 401 Park Drive, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
McLean Imaging Center, McLean Hospital, 115 Mill St., Belmont, MA, 02478, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 401 Park Drive, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2019 Feb 1;195:59-65. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2018.11.023. Epub 2018 Dec 21.
Women experience greater difficulty quitting smoking than men, which may be explained by sex differences in brain circuitry underlying cognitive control. Prior work has linked reduced interhemispheric executive control network (ECN) coupling with poor executive function, shorter time to relapse, and greater substance use. Lower structural connectivity between a key ECN hub, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and the dorsal striatum (DS) also contributes to less efficient cognitive control recruitment, and reduced intrahemispheric connectivity between these regions has been associated with smoking relapse. Therefore, sex differences were probed by evaluating interhemispheric ECN and intrahemispheric DLPFC-DS connectivity. To assess the potential sex by nicotine interaction, a pilot sample of non-smokers was evaluated following acute nicotine and placebo administration.
Thirty-five smokers (19 women) completed one resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Seventeen non-smokers (8 women) were scanned twice using a repeated measures design where they received 2 and 0 mg nicotine.
In smokers, women had less interhemispheric ECN and DLPFC-DS coupling than men. In non-smokers, there was a drug x sex interaction where women, relative to men, had weaker ECN coupling following nicotine but not placebo administration.
The current work indicates that nicotine-dependent women, versus men, have weaker connectivity in brain networks critically implicated in cognitive control. How these connectivity differences contribute to the behavioral aspects of smoking requires more testing. However, building on the literature, it is likely these deficits in functional connectivity contribute to the lower abstinence rates noted in women relative to men.
女性戒烟比男性更困难，这可能与认知控制相关的大脑回路的性别差异有关。先前的研究将减少大脑半球间执行控制网络（ECN）的耦合与执行功能差、复发时间短和物质使用量增加联系起来。关键 ECN 中枢（背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC））和背侧纹状体（DS）之间的结构连接减少也会导致认知控制的募集效率降低，并且这些区域之间的半球内连接减少与吸烟复发有关。因此，通过评估大脑半球间 ECN 和半球内 DLPFC-DS 连接来探究性别差异。为了评估尼古丁的潜在性别交互作用，在急性尼古丁和安慰剂给药后，对非吸烟者的小样本进行了评估。
35 名吸烟者（19 名女性）完成了一次静息状态功能磁共振成像扫描。17 名非吸烟者（8 名女性）使用重复测量设计进行了两次扫描，他们接受了 2 和 0mg 尼古丁。
在吸烟者中，女性大脑半球间 ECN 和 DLPFC-DS 连接弱于男性。在非吸烟者中，存在药物 x 性别相互作用，与男性相比，女性在接受尼古丁后而非安慰剂后 ECN 耦合较弱。
目前的工作表明，与男性相比，尼古丁依赖的女性大脑网络中的连接较弱，这些网络在认知控制中起着至关重要的作用。这些连接差异如何导致吸烟行为方面的差异需要更多的测试。然而，基于文献，这些功能连接的缺陷很可能导致女性相对于男性的戒烟率较低。
