Cigarette Cue Attentional Bias in Cocaine-Smoking and Non-Cocaine-Using Cigarette Smokers

Abstract

Introduction: Cigarette smoking in cocaine users is nearly four times higher than the national prevalence and cocaine use increases cigarette smoking. The mechanisms underlying cigarette smoking in cocaine-using individuals need to be identified to promote cigarette and cocaine abstinence. Previous studies have examined the salience of cigarette and cocaine cues separately. The present aim was to determine whether cigarette attentional bias (AB) is higher in cigarettes smokers who smoke cocaine relative to individuals who only smoke cigarettes. Methods: Twenty cigarette smokers who smoke cocaine and 20 non-cocaine-using cigarette smokers completed a visual probe task with eye-tracking technology. During this task, the magnitude of cigarette and cocaine AB was assessed through orienting bias, fixation time, and response time. Results: Cocaine users displayed an orienting bias towards cigarette cues. Cocaine users also endorsed a more urgent desire to smoke to relieve negative affect associated with cigarette craving than non-cocaine users (g = 0.6). Neither group displayed a cigarette AB, as measured by fixation time. Cocaine users, but not non-cocaine users, displayed a cocaine AB as measured by orienting bias (g = 2.0) and fixation time (g = 1.2). There were no significant effects for response time data. Conclusions: Cocaine-smoking cigarettes smokers display an initial orienting bias toward cigarette cues, but not sustained cigarette AB. The incentive motivation underlying cigarette smoking also differs. Cocaine smokers report more urgent desire to smoke to relieve negative affect. Identifying differences in motivation to smoke cigarettes may provide new treatment targets for cigarette and cocaine use disorders. Implications: These results suggest that cocaine-smoking cigarette smokers display an initial orienting bias towards cigarette cues, but not sustained attention towards cigarette cues, relative to non-cocaine-using smokers. Smoked cocaine users also report a more urgent desire to smoke to relieve negative affect than non-cocaine users. Identifying differences in motivation to smoke cigarettes may provide new treatment targets for both cigarette and cocaine use disorders.

Contribution of cocaine-related cues to concurrent monetary choice in humans

“…The choice bias observed reproduced those effects observed in Experiments 1 and 2, indicating that the outcome was not bound by the specific task parameters used in those earlier experiments. The significance and magnitude of the fixation time attentional bias observed also reproduced similar outcomes in recent studies evaluating cocaine cue attentional bias using a visual probe method (Marks et al 2014a, 2014b, 2015, 2016). Results with another measure (i.e., percentage final fixation scores) were also consistent with an attentional bias towards cocaine-related cues.…”

“…Supporting these theories is research showing greater visual attention to laboratory conditioned cues (e.g., Hogarth et al 2003; Mayo and de Wit 2015). Recent research has demonstrated attentional bias in cocaine users by demonstrating a robust, reliable, and selective bias for cocaine cues (Leeman et al 2014; Marks et al 2014a, 2014b, 2015, 2016).…”

“…Relatedly, measures of subjective liking or arousal were not collected, which precluded mediation testing the pathway between variations in stimulus valence and choice bias. The stimuli selected had previously been successful in generating cocaine cue attentional bias (Marks et al 2014a, 2014b, 2015, 2016) and were successful in Experiment 3 suggesting salience and subjective liking. Nevertheless, future work should test whether biased responding extends to laboratory-conditioned cues and whether valence or arousal could mediate this effect.…”

The Attentional Bias in Current and Former Smokers

“…In particular, the attentional bias (AB; Williams et al, 1988) seem to be particularly relevant, as shown by several studies in different areas such as anxiety disorders (Pool et al, 2016), food consumption (Deluchi et al, 2017), alcohol abusers (Manchery et al, 2017) and cocaine users (Marks et al, 2016). A plethora of studies reported this effect to be present also within smokers (Bradley et al, 2003; Drobes et al, 2006; Munafò et al, 2003; Waters et al, 2003b).…”

Valuation system connectivity is correlated with poly-drug use in young adults

“…The positive correlations observed among all three networks and cocaine use via two-way interactions with tobacco can be attributed to the concurrent use of both cocaine and tobacco (Marks et al, 2016), with the latter acting as a gateway to cocaine use (Kandel and Kandel, 2015). The positive correlation between VS connectivity and both cocaine as well as opiates could be indicative of “speedball” use.…”