BIOBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS IN GENETIC RISK FOR SMOKING

烟草的使用与所有癌症死亡的大约30%有关，吸烟仍然是我们社会中最可预防的癌症和过早死亡的唯一原因。最近的流行病学研究表明，吸烟有很强的遗传成分。不幸的是，试图测量生理、激素、行为或主观反应的研究相对较少，这些反应可以客观地定义吸烟的表型。由于这些类型的反应可能是调节吸烟遗传易感性的重要机制，因此迫切需要研究不同程度吸烟风险的人之间的差异。这项拟议的研究试图在基于实验室的实验范例中检查可能导致吸烟遗传风险增加的生物行为机制。为了实现这一目标，我们将检查男性和女性吸烟者和从不吸烟者对标准IV尼古丁剂量的心理生理、激素、自我报告和信息处理反应，以及这些反应与家庭吸烟史的关系。重点将放在这些范例中的情感反应和注意力反应上，因为这些反应在经验上和理论上都与吸烟行为有关。我们还将检查受试者在服用尼古丁后对标准化图片的情感反应。有人假设，尼古丁使用后获得的情感和注意力反应，包括对情感和吸烟相关线索的反应，将预测家庭吸烟史。在遗传学框架内检查尼古丁的生物行为反应的研究尚未进行，这可能有助于更好地理解调节吸烟易感性的机制。这种认识的增加可能会导致更有效地预防和治疗吸烟，从而降低我们社会中的癌症患病率。

Tobacco use is associated with approximately 30 percent of all cancer deaths, and cigarette smoking remains the single most preventable cause of cancer and premature death in our society. Recent epidemiological studies have demonstrated a strong genetic component to smoking. Unfortunately, there has been a relative dearth of studies that have attempted to measure the physiological, hormonal, behavioral, or subjective responses that may objectively define the phenotype for smoking. Since these types of responses may figure importantly as mechanisms that mediate the genetic susceptibility for smoking, there is a pressing need for studies that examine differences among those at varying degrees of risk for smoking. The proposed research seeks to examine biobehavioral mechanisms that may underlie an increased genetic risk for smoking within a laboratory-based experimental paradigm. To accomplish this goal, we will examine men and women smokers' and never-smokers' psychophysiological, hormonal, self-report, and information processing responses to standard IV nicotine doses and how these responses relate to family smoking history. The focus will be on affective and attentional responses within these paradigms, since these are empirically and theoretically related to smoking behavior. We will also examine subjects' affective responses to standardized pictures after nicotine dosing. It is hypothesized that affective and attentional responses obtained after nicotine administration, including responses to affective and smoking- related cues, will be predictive of family smoking history. Research examining biobehavioral response to nicotine within a genetics framework has yet to be conducted and may lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that mediate susceptibility for smoking. This increased understanding could lead to more effective prevention and treatment efforts for cigarette smoking, and consequently decrease the prevalence of cancer in our society.