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Tobacco smoking is associated with deleterious health outcomes. Most smokers want to quit smoking, yet relapse rates are high. Understanding neural differences associated with tobacco use may help generate novel treatment options. Several animal studies have recently highlighted the central role of the thalamus in substance use disorders, but this research focus has been understudied in human smokers. Here, we investigated associations between structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging measures of the thalamus and its subnuclei to distinct smoking characteristics. We acquired anatomical scans of 32 smokers as well as functional resting-state scans before and after a cue-reactivity task. Thalamic functional connectivity was associated with craving and dependence severity, whereas the volume of the thalamus was associated with dependence severity only. Craving, which fluctuates rapidly, was best characterized by differences in brain function, whereas the rather persistent syndrome of dependence severity was associated with both brain structural differences and function. Our study supports the notion that functional versus structural measures tend to be associated with behavioral measures that evolve at faster versus slower temporal scales, respectively. It confirms the importance of the thalamus to understand mechanisms of addiction and highlights it as a potential target for brain-based interventions to support smoking cessation, such as brain stimulation and neurofeedback.

The anticipation of control over aversive events in life is relevant for our mental health. Insights on the underlying neural mechanisms remain limited. We developed a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task that uses auditory stimuli to explore the neural correlates of (1) the anticipation of control over aversion and (2) the processing of aversion. In a sample of 25 healthy adults, we observed increased neural activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (ventromedial prefrontal cortex and rostral anterior cingulate cortex), other brain areas relevant for reward anticipation (ventral striatum, brainstem [ventral tegmental area], midcingulate cortex), and the posterior cingulate cortex when they anticipated control over aversion compared with anticipating no control (1). The processing of aversive sounds compared to neutral sounds (2) was associated with increased neural activation in the bilateral posterior insula. Our findings provide evidence for the important role of medial prefrontal regions in control anticipation and highlight the relevance of conceiving the neural mechanisms involved within a reward‐based framework., The anticipation of control over aversive events in life is relevant for our mental health. In healthy adults, control anticipation over aversive sounds is associated with increased neural activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and other brain areas relevant for reward anticipation.

Background: Cue-reactivity paradigms provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms of nicotine craving in nicotine-dependent subjects. In order to study cue-driven nicotine craving, robust and validated stimulus datasets are essential. Objectives: The aim of this study was to generate and validate a large set of individually rated smoking-related cues that allow for assessment of different stimulus intensities along the dimensions craving, valence, and arousal. Methods: The image database consisted of 330 visual cues. Two hundred fifty smoking-associated pictures (Creative Commons license) were chosen from online databases and showed a widespread variety of smoking-associated content. Eighty pictures from previously published databases were included for cross-validation. Forty volunteers with tobacco use disorder rated “urge-to-smoke,” “valence,” and “arousal” for all images on a 100-point visual analogue scale. Pictures were also labelled according to 18 categories such as lit/unlit cigarettes in mouth, cigarette end, and cigarette in ashtray. Results: Ratings (mean ± SD) were as follows: urge to smoke, 44.9 ± 13.2; valence, 51.2 ± 7.6; and arousal, 54.6 ± 7.1. All ratings, particularly “urge to smoke,” were widely distributed along the whole scale spectrum. Conclusions: We present a novel image library of well-described smoking-related cues, which were rated on a continuous scale along the dimensions craving, valence, and arousal that accounts for inter-individual differences. The rating software, image database, and their ratings are publicly available at https://smocuda.github.io., European Addiction Research, 27 (2), ISSN:1421-9891, ISSN:1022-6877