Altered subcallosal and posterior cingulate cortex-based functional connectivity during smoking cue and mental simulation processing in smokers.
BACKGROUND
Long-term cigarette smoking induces sensitization of incentive salience and conditioning of contextual cues which involves brain function alteration across multiple regions. Understanding how nicotine affects hub-based functional connectivities involved in affective and cognitive function can help us determine the treatment strategy for nicotine dependence.


METHOD
Functional MRI was conducted on 30 smokers and 30 non-smokers while mentally simulating neutral and smoking hand movements. Smoking cue and mental simulation processing-related changes in functional connectivity strengths of the subcallosal and posterior cingulate cortex (SCC and PCC) with major brain network nodes were examined.


RESULTS
Compared to non-smokers, smokers showed cue-induced SCC functional connectivities which were enhanced with the intraparietal sulcus and reduced with the medial prefrontal cortex. The PCC activation and functional connectivity enhancements with the anterior insula cortex and rostro-lateral prefrontal cortex was found during smoking mental simulation. The PCC-lateral prefrontal cortex functional connectivity correlated with nicotine dependence severity.


CONCLUSION
The present results demonstrate that smokers can be identified by cue-induced SCC functional connectivity strength decline and increment in the default mode and dorsal attention network nodes. However, nicotine dependence was associated with smoking mental simulation-related PCC-lateral prefrontal cortex functional connectivity strength, suggesting that the development of nicotine dependence may depend on the strength of coupling between the default mode network and the central executive network at the cognitive level.
['Kim|Joong Il|JI|', 'Lee|Jong Doo|JD|', 'Hwang|Hee-Jin|HJ|', 'Ki|Seon Wan|SW|', 'Park|Il Ho|IH|', 'Park|Tae-Yong|TY|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D016022:Case-Control Studies D003463:Cues D006179:Gyrus Cinguli D006801:Humans D007092:Imagination D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009434:Neural Pathways D010296:Parietal Lobe D017397:Prefrontal Cortex D000074285:Smokers D012907:Smoking D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder D055815:Young Adult
Functional connectivity Nicotine Posterior cingulate cortex Prefrontal cortex Addiction Subcallosal cingulate cortex