Mechanisms Linking Anhedonia and Tobacco Addiction

描述（由申请人提供）：持续吸烟是致命疾病的主要原因。尽管如此，许多吸烟者在尝试戒烟后不久又重新吸烟。这些人可能具有情感特征，使他们特别容易复发。快感缺乏——一种表明无法体验快乐的情感维度——可能就是这样一种特征。证据表明快感缺乏与复发风险有关。然而，关于快感缺乏症和吸烟之间联系机制的研究一直很有限，很少有数据可以指导治疗的发展，以减轻快感缺乏症对复发风险的影响。因此，提出了一个实验室实验，以检验从快感缺乏和吸烟的“食欲加工”模型中得出的假设。该模型认为，快感缺乏程度较高的个体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性。因此，当高快感缺乏个体戒烟时，他们的食欲动机可能会发生显著变化，这反过来扭曲了重新开始吸烟与保持戒烟和追求替代强化物的相对奖励价值。在这项研究中，目前的吸烟者（N=128； 100 - 10支/天）将完成基线评估，然后进行两个平衡的实验，其中一个实验阶段他们将随意吸烟，另一个实验阶段他们将戒烟12小时。在两个实验阶段，参与者将完成：(a)自我报告情绪和香烟渴望的测量；(b)评估奖励相关、吸烟相关和厌恶刺激的动机显著性的计算机化任务；(c)一个复发模拟任务，通过测量参与者选择开始吸烟与延迟吸烟的程度来评估开始吸烟的相对回报价值。本研究的主要目的是验证具有较高基线快感缺乏症的吸烟者将表现出更大的剥夺诱导的假设：(1)非药物奖励的激励特性缺陷（表现为积极影响的减少和非药物强化物的动机显著性）；(2)吸烟的激励特性增加（表现为吸烟渴望和吸烟动机显著性的增加）；(3)为了金钱而开始吸烟与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增加复发脆弱性的动机机制的重要信息。这些数据可用于开发更有效的治疗方法，以减轻快感缺乏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相关的戒烟困难，这些信息可能对改善公众健康的努力具有重大价值。公共健康相关性：这项研究将有助于确定为什么有快感缺乏心理特征的人（即不喜欢愉快活动的倾向）在戒烟时不太成功的原因。发现这些原因可能会导致更有效的戒烟治疗的发展，防止人们在戒烟尝试后重新吸烟。由于与持续吸烟有关的巨大健康费用，这些信息可能对改善公众健康的努力具有重大价值。

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.