Mechanisms Linking Anhedonia and Tobacco Addiction

描述(申请人提供)：持续吸烟是致命性疾病的主要原因。尽管如此，许多吸烟者在尝试戒烟后不久又重新开始吸烟。这些人可能具有情感特征，这让他们特别容易复发。快感缺乏症--一种表明无法体验快乐的情感维度--可能就是这样的特征。有证据表明，快感缺乏与复发风险有关。然而，关于快感缺乏与吸烟之间的联系的机制的研究一直很有限，几乎没有数据来指导开发减轻快感缺乏对复发风险的影响的治疗方法。因此，有人建议进行一项实验室实验，以检验从快感缺失和吸烟的“欲望加工”模型中得出的假说。这个模型声称，快感缺乏程度较高的人在奖励处理方面存在预先存在的缺陷，这提高了他们对急性烟草剥夺对食欲动机驱动变化的影响的敏感度。因此，当高快感缺乏症患者戒烟时，他们可能会经历食欲动机的显著变化，这反过来又扭曲了重新开始吸烟与保持戒烟和寻求替代增强剂的相对回报价值。在这项研究中，目前的吸烟者(N=128；&gt；10支/天)将完成基线评估，然后是两个平衡实验阶段，一个是临时吸烟，另一个是戒烟12小时。在两个实验阶段，参与者将完成：(A)自我报告情感和吸烟欲望的测量；(B)评估与奖励相关、吸烟相关和厌恶刺激的动机显著程度的计算机化任务；以及(C)反复模拟任务，通过测量参与者选择开始吸烟与为了钱而推迟吸烟的程度来评估开始吸烟的相对奖励价值。主要目的是检验以下假设：基线较高的快感缺乏的吸烟者将表现出更大的剥夺诱导：(1)非药理奖励的激励特性的缺陷(表现为积极情感的减少和非药物增强剂的激励突显)；(2)吸烟的激励特性的增加(表现为对香烟的渴望增加和吸烟的激励突显)；(3)为了钱而开始吸烟和推迟吸烟的相对奖励值增加。如果成功，这项研究将产生关于快感缺乏症增加复发易感性的激励机制的重要信息。这些数据可以用来开发更有效的治疗方法，减轻快感缺乏症对早期复发风险的影响。鉴于持续吸烟对健康的有害影响，以及与快感缺乏症相关的戒烟困难，这些信息可能对改善公共健康的努力具有重要价值。与公共健康相关：这项研究将有助于确定具有快感缺乏症心理特征(即不喜欢享受愉快活动的倾向)的人在尝试戒烟时不太成功的原因。发现这些原因可能会导致开发更有效的戒烟治疗，以防止人们在戒烟尝试后再次吸烟。由于与持续吸烟相关的巨大健康成本，这些信息可能对改善公共健康的努力具有重要价值。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Persistent smoking is a major cause of fatal disease. Despite this, many smokers relapse back to smoking shortly after making a quit attempt. These individuals may possess affective characteristics that leave them especially vulnerable to relapse. Anhedonia-an affective dimension indicative of inability to experience pleasure-may be such a characteristic. Evidence suggests that anhedonia is associated with relapse risk. However, research on the mechanisms linking anhedonia and smoking has been limited, leaving little data to guide the development of treatments that mitigate anhedonia's effect on relapse risk. Accordingly, a laboratory experiment is proposed to test hypotheses derived from an "appetitive- processing" model of anhedonia and smoking. This model purports that individuals with higher anhedonia have pre-existing deficits in reward processing, which heightens their sensitivity to the effects of acute tobacco deprivation on changes in appetitive motivational drives. Thus, when high-anhedonia individuals quit smoking, they may experience marked changes in appetitive motivation, which in turn distort the relative reward value of reinitiating smoking versus maintaining abstinence and pursuing alternate reinforcers. In this study, current smokers (N=128; > 10 cig/day) will complete a baseline assessment followed by two counterbalanced experimental sessions, one in which they will have smoked ad lib and one in which they will have abstained from smoking for 12 hours. At both experimental sessions, participants will complete: (a) self-report measures of affect and cigarette craving; (b) computerized tasks that assess the motivational salience of reward-related, smoking-related, and aversive stimuli; and (c) a relapse analogue task that assesses the relative reward value of initiating smoking by measuring the extent to which participants choose to initiate smoking versus delay smoking for money. The primary aims are to test the hypotheses that smokers with higher baseline anhedonia will exhibit greater deprivation-induced: (1) deficits in the incentive properties of nonpharmacological rewards (exhibited by reductions in positive affect and the motivational salience of non-drug reinforcers); (2) increases in the incentive properties of smoking (exhibited by increases in cigarette craving and the motivational salience of smoking); (3) increases in the relative reward value of initiating smoking vs. delaying smoking for money. If successful, this study will generate essential information on the motivational mechanisms through which anhedonia increases relapse vulnerability. These data could be used to develop more effective treatments that mitigate anhedonia's influence on early relapse risk. Given the detrimental health effects of persistent smoking and the difficulty in quitting associated with anhedonia, such information could be of significant value to efforts to improve public health. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This study will help determine the reasons why people who have the psychological trait of anhedonia (i.e., the tendency to not enjoy pleasurable activities) are less successful when trying to quit smoking cigarettes. Uncovering these reasons could lead to the development of more effective smoking cessation treatments that prevent people from relapsing back to smoking after a quit attempt. Because of the enormous health costs associated with persistent smoking, such information could be of significant value to efforts to improve public health.