Intra-regional and inter-regional abnormalities and cognitive control deficits in young adult smokers

Abstract

Tobacco use during later adolescence and young adulthood may cause serious neurophysiological changes; rationally, it is extremely important to study the relationship between brain dysfunction and behavioral performances in young adult smokers. Previous resting state studies investigated the neural mechanisms in smokers. Unfortunately, few studies focused on spontaneous activity differences between young adult smokers and nonsmokers from both intra-regional and inter-regional levels, less is known about the association between resting state abnormalities and behavioral deficits. Therefore, we used fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (fALFF) and resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) to investigate the resting state spontaneous activity differences between young adult smokers and nonsmokers. A correlation analysis was carried out to assess the relationship between neuroimaging findings and clinical information (pack-years, cigarette dependence, age of onset and craving score) as well as cognitive control deficits measured by the Stroop task. Consistent with previous addiction findings, our results revealed the resting state abnormalities within frontostriatal circuits, i.e., enhanced spontaneous activity of the caudate and reduced functional strength between the caudate and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in young adult smokers. Moreover, the fALFF values of the caudate were correlated with craving and RSFC strength between the caudate and ACC was associated with the cognitive control impairments in young adult smokers. Our findings could lead to a better understanding of intrinsic functional architecture of baseline brain activity in young smokers by providing regional and brain circuit spontaneous neuronal activity properties as well as their association with cognitive control impairments.

Cortico-Striatal-Thalamic Loop Circuits of the Salience Network: A Central Pathway in Psychiatric Disease and Treatment

“…For example, lower resting-state functional connectivity between the striatum, cingulate and insula have been found in cocaine users; dorsal ACC and dlPFC connectivity was linked to loss of control and impulsivity, respectively (Hu et al, 2015). Furthermore, reduced activation in the dorsal caudate and dlPFC has been found to be correlated with impulsivity and Stroop task errors in SUD (Qiu et al, 2013; Feng et al, 2016; Yuan et al, 2016). Conversely, gambling addiction has displayed increased PFC connectivity to the striatum; this connectivity was associated with impulsivity, smoking frequency and craving severity (Koehler et al, 2013).…”

White matter integrity of central executive network correlates with enhanced brain reactivity to smoking cues

“…Smokers were associated with cognitive declines (Bi et al, ; Jacobsen et al, ; Swan and Lessov‐Schlaggar, ; Yuan et al, ). For example, our previous studies demonstrated poorer cognitive control performance accuracy in smokers relative to non‐smokers (Bi et al, ; Feng et al, ; Yuan et al, ). In the present study, we also detected the cognitive deficits in smokers by revealing the decreased response accuracy during the incongruent condition (Fig.…”

Altered spontaneous brain activity in chronic smokers revealed by fractional ramplitude of low-frequency fluctuation analysis: a preliminary study

“…Furthermore, smokers also demonstrated changes in functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and ventral striatum 17 . Recently, several studies 4–7 reported alterations of brain spontaneous activity during resting state in chronic smokers with a relatively small sample size. However, little is known about the chronic effects of cigarette smoking on the resting state spontaneous activity with a relatively large sample size, especially less was known about the association between the resting state abnormalities and cigarette smoking measures, which was very important to improve the understanding of the neural mechanism in smokers.…”

“…A common finding from acute administration of nicotine/smoking is the globally reduced brain activity 3 . However, only a few studies 4–7 reported alterations of regional spontaneous activity during resting state in chronic smokers. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has recently been suggested as an important tool to explore the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying psychiatric and neurological diseases 8 .…”

“…6 observed that fALFF was higher in the left middle occipital gyrus, left limbic lobe and left cerebellum posterior lobe but lower in the right middle frontal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, right extra nuclear, left postcentral gyrus and left cerebellum anterior lobe in smokers compared to nonsmokers. Recently, a fALFF study on 27 young adult smokers revealed that smokers had higher fALFF values in the right caudate 7 . The aim of the present study was to further investigate the fALFF of spontaneous brain dynamics in chronic smokers with a relatively large sample size.…”