Effects of nicotine on affect are moderated by stressor proximity and frequency, positive alternatives, and smoker status

Abstract

The Situation x Trait Adaptive Response (STAR) model hypothesizes that nicotine reduces negative and enhances positive affect to a greater degree in situations involving internally driven attention, as when stressor stimuli are distal (past or future), thereby allowing nicotine-primed biasing of attentional processing away from negative and toward positive stimuli. To test this hypothesis, the effects of nicotine were assessed in 64 smokers and 64 never-smokers, half of whom viewed emotionally negative pictures in a no-choice picture attention task that required them to focus on the picture stressors. The other half viewed the same stimuli in a two-choice picture attention task that presented stressor pictures in one visual field and simultaneously presented positive or neutral pictures in the other visual field. Participants received a nicotine patch during one session and a placebo patch during the other session. Nicotine modulated affect only in smokers. In smokers, compared with placebo, nicotine patch reduced negative affect more during the distal periods (between stressors) than during actual stressor exposure and in women reduced negative affect more when the proportion of negative stimuli was low. Nicotine also enhanced positive affect more during distal than proximal stressors. Nicotine tended to reduce eye-gaze at negative pictures, especially when the alternative picture was positive. The overall findings are consistent with the view that nicotine biases attention away from negative stimuli when equally salient positive or benign stimuli are present.

Effects of nicotine on emotional distraction of attentional orienting: evidence of possible moderation by dopamine type 2 receptor genotype

“…This finding in A2 individuals is consistent with other findings and theory (Gilbert, 1995; Gilbert et al, 2008a) suggesting that nicotine attenuates processing of negative affect when the negative stimulus is more temporally distal and less proximal. For example, Gilbert et al (2008a) found greater reduction in negative affect by nicotine during the distal periods (shortly after stressors), than during actual stressor exposure, as well as reduced attentional bias (eye-gaze) toward negative pictures, relative to positive pictures, during the later but not earlier portions of picture presentations.…”

“…Pictures were similar in terms of complexity, color, saturation, and brightness and were selected from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al, 1995) and our laboratory (Gilbert et al, 2008a). The mean valence scores on the Lang et al 9-point scale for these pictures were (standard deviations in parentheses): negative 2.86 (.98), positive 6.93 (.99) and neutral 4.90 (.73), where “1” = extremely negative through “9” = “extremely positive”.…”

“…Recent studies suggest that attentional and affective responses to nicotine abstinence and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) are moderated by dopamine-related genetic polymorphisms (Gilbert et al, 2005; Gilbert et al, 2009) and affect-related attentional and situational factors (Gilbert et al, 2008a, 2008b). Relatively little is known about when, how, and in whom nicotine withdrawal symptoms are most likely to occur (Gilbert et al, 2009; Kassel et al, 2003), though it is widely recognized that both nicotinic cholinergic and dopaminergic receptors are critical modulators of attentional processes and reinforcing effects of nicotine (Corrigall et al, 1992; Robinson and Berridge, 1993).…”

Reward expectations lead to smoking uptake among depressed adolescents

“…Expectations that smoking confers rewards (e.g., enjoyable, something to do when bored, stay thin) increases the likellihood that depressed adolescents will choose to smoke. As nicotine can ameliorate the affective and reward processing deficits associated with depression (Barr et al, 2008; Gilbert et al, 2008; Kenny and Markou, 2006; Spring et al, 2008; Warburton and Mancuso, 1998), and impact neurocognitive processes that are typicaaly diminished in depression (Evans and Drobes, 2009; Gilbert et al, 2008; Heishman et al, 2010), these adolescents may indeed learn that smoking is rewarding. Thus, their smoking experience may then serve to validate their expectations.…”

Validation of the human odor span task: effects of nicotine

“…The 20-item PANAS (Watson et al 1988) was scored to produce positive affect and negative affect scales which are internally reliable, and have been extensively validated (Watson et al 1999). Six items from the FSQ (irritable, attentive, jittery, nauseous, sick, and dizzy Gilbert et al 2008) were administered to assess commonly reported aversive effects of nicotine.…”