Neurobiological substrate of smoking-related attentional bias

Abstract

Substance-dependent patients automatically and involuntarily allocate their attention to drug cues in the environment, a process referred to as attentional bias. Attentional bias is increased during periods of subjective craving and predictive of treatment outcome and relapse in substance dependence. Despite recent theoretical and clinical advances with regard to attentional bias, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are largely unknown. The objective of the current study was to investigate the neural substrate of attentional bias and associated subjective craving in smokers. A group of smokers (n= 20) and a group of age- and gender-matched nonsmoking controls (n= 22) were recruited fro..