Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.
Department of Psychology, Western Illinois University.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2024 Aug;32(4):453-464. doi: 10.1037/pha0000707. Epub 2024 Feb 8.
In contrast to overnight deprivation versus satiety studies, a small number of placebo-controlled studies have failed to find that nicotine administration reduces attentional bias (AB) to smoking cues. To assess the reliability of this failure and to address the duration and salience of AB in smokers versus never-smokers, we used a longer-than-typical (i.e., 3,000 ms) smoking cue-presentation time in a placebo-controlled trial of smokers and never-smokers. We aimed to assess whether a nicotine patch (i.e., active vs. placebo) attenuates continuously assessed eye gaze-measured AB to smoking cues across 3,000 ms in 32 habitual, overnight-deprived smokers and smoker-nonsmoker differences compared to 32 never-smokers. We presented a series of picture pairs (i.e., one smoking-related and one affectively neutral control picture) simultaneously to assess AB. Participants attended a 14 mg nicotine patch and a placebo patch session in a randomized order. The habitual smokers were 12-18 hr nicotine-deprived during both sessions. Smokers demonstrated a stronger AB toward smoking cues than never-smokers across the entire 3,000 ms cue-presentation time. Nicotine did not significantly reduce the AB to smoking cues but the AB was strongly and positively related to deprivation-associated cravings in smokers. Patch-delivered nicotine did not reduce AB to smoking cues presented for up to 3,000 ms, even though smoker-nonsmoker differences in bias remained. Assessments of longer cue presentations and more subtle cues may provide nuance not currently captured by existing studies, because of potential demand effects in designs that contrast overnight versus sated state effects on AB. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
与 overnight deprivation（断夜）与 satiety（饱食）研究相反，少数安慰剂对照研究未能发现尼古丁给药可减少对吸烟线索的注意力偏差（AB）。为了评估这种失败的可靠性，并解决吸烟者与从不吸烟者的 AB 的持续时间和显著性问题，我们在吸烟者和从不吸烟者的安慰剂对照试验中使用了比典型时间（即 3000 毫秒）更长的吸烟线索呈现时间。我们旨在评估尼古丁贴片（即活性与安慰剂）是否能在 3000 毫秒内减弱对吸烟线索的持续评估的眼动测量 AB，共有 32 名习惯性、断夜的吸烟者和 32 名从不吸烟者参与，比较了吸烟者与从不吸烟者之间的差异。我们同时呈现了一系列图片对（即一个与吸烟相关的图片和一个情感中性的控制图片），以评估 AB。参与者按随机顺序参加了 14 毫克尼古丁贴片和安慰剂贴片的测试。在两次测试中，习惯性吸烟者都被剥夺尼古丁 12-18 小时。与从不吸烟者相比，吸烟者在整个 3000 毫秒线索呈现时间内对吸烟线索表现出更强的 AB。尼古丁并没有显著减少对吸烟线索的 AB，但 AB 与吸烟者的与剥夺相关的渴望强烈正相关。即使在吸烟者与从不吸烟者之间的偏差仍然存在的情况下，贴片输送的尼古丁也没有减少对呈现长达 3000 毫秒的吸烟线索的 AB。更长线索呈现和更微妙线索的评估可能会提供现有研究无法捕捉到的细微差别，因为在对比 AB 的断夜与饱食状态效应的设计中存在潜在的需求效应。
