Spontaneous Action Representation in Smokers when Watching Movie Characters Smoke

Abstract

Do smokers simulate smoking when they see someone else smoke? For regular smokers, smoking is such a highly practiced motor skill that it often occurs automatically, without conscious awareness. Research on the brain basis of action observation has delineated a frontopareital network that is commonly recruited when people observe, plan or imitate actions. Here, we investigated whether this action observation network would be preferentially recruited in smokers when viewing complex smoking cues, such as those occurring in motion pictures. Seventeen right-handed smokers and seventeen non-smokers watched a popular movie while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using a natural stimulus, such as a movie, allowd us to keep both smoking and non-smoking participants naïve to the goals of the experiment. Brain activity evoked by scenes of movie smoking was contrasted with non-smoking control scenes which were matched for frequency and duration. Compared to non-smokers, smokers showed greater activity in left anterior intraparietal sulcus and inferior frontal gyrus, both regions involved in the simulation of contralateral hand-based gestures, when viewing smoking vs. control scenes. These results demonstrate that smokers spontaneously represent the action of smoking when viewing others smoke, the consequence of which may make it more difficult to abstain from smoking.

The motor way: Clinical implications of understanding and shaping actions with the motor system in autism and drug addiction

“…Speculatively, the idea that the motor system plays a crucial role not only for controlling the elementary physical features of movement (e.g., force, direction, and amplitude), but also for higher functions (i.e., to understand and to shape behavior; see the introduction), radically changes the way in which we conceive others' behavior and our own (Gallese, 2007;Sinigaglia, 2013;Sinigaglia & Rizzolatti, 2011). Moreover-even if clinical studies testing (i.e., proving or falsifying) such a hypothesis are necessary-it seems plausible that the plasticity of the cortical motor system may be considered in order to tackle the automatized and compulsive drug-seeking/drug-taking behaviors in substance abuse disorders (Smolka et al, 2006;Wagner et al, 2011;Yalachkov et al, 2009; for a review, see Yalachkov et al, 2010). The transition from use to abuse, and then to addiction, is a critical concept for rehabilitation.…”

“…3 Drug use, drug abuse, and drug dependence: three consecutive but independent phases with increasing severity. Low-order cue reactivity (CR) plays a potential role in drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior (gray boxes and color lines are the parts specifically considered in this study) a role in the low-order CR phenomenon (Brody et al, 2002;Kosten et al, 2006;Smolka et al, 2006;Wagner, Dal Cin, Sargent, Kelley, & Heatherton, 2011;Yalachkov, Kaiser, & Naumer, 2009) (see Fig. 3).…”

Enhanced corticobulbar excitability in chronic smokers during visual exposure to cigarette smoking cues

“…28,29 The AON has been considered recently as closely related to the mirror neuron system. 30 It is assumed that via this system, visual perception of an action elicits an internal simulation of the same action.…”

Involvement of action-related brain regions in nicotine addiction

“…Furthermore, observing others' actions recruits parietal and lateral frontal cortices, which are activated also when individuals plan, imitate, or execute the same actions, thus demonstrating that the action representations can be accessed via different ways. Given that addicted people are frequently exposed to drug use paraphernalia and to other users engaging in drugtaking behavior, the precise and detailed investigation of the relevance of action-related brain regions for drug cue reactivity is essential.A recent study by Wagner et al offers an interesting perspective on this issue (Wagner et al 2011). Since smoking comprises a manual action component and many smokers engage in smoking in an automatized manner (Tiffany 1990), they hypothesized that brain regions such as the anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS) and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), which are responsible for the planning, initiating, and imitating of manual actions, would be recruited to a greater extent in smokers than in nonsmokers when subjects watch movie characters smoke.…”