Open AccessEvidence from an fMRI study that dessert-flavored e-cigarettes engage taste-related, but not smoking-related, brain circuitry for female daily smokers.
Author(s) -
Andréa L. Hobkirk,
Kenneth R. Houser,
Brianna Hoglen,
Zachary T. Bitzer,
Alan Fendrich,
Candace Bordner,
Jonathan Foulds,
Jianli Wang,
Dahlia Mukherjee,
Jessica Yingst,
Prasanna Karunanayaka,
Reema Goel,
John P. Richie,
Ryan J. Elias,
Qing Yang
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
experimental and clinical psychopharmacology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.066
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1936-2293
pISSN - 1064-1297
DOI - 10.1037/pha0000488
Subject(s) - nicotine , neuroscience , dopaminergic , psychology , aerosolization , electronic cigarette , brain activity and meditation , biological neural network , functional magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , inhalation , dopamine , psychiatry , electroencephalography , pathology
Regulations limiting the sale of flavored e-cigarette products are controversial for their potential to interfere with e-cigarette use as a cessation aid in addition to curbing youth use. Limited research suggests that flavor might enhance the addictive potential of e-cigarettes; however, the acute effects of flavored aerosols on brain function among humans have not been assessed. The present study aimed to isolate and compare the neural substrates of flavored and unflavored e-cigarette aerosols on brain function among nine female daily smokers. Participants inhaled aerosolized e-liquid with 36 mg/mL of nicotine with and without a strawberry-vanilla flavor while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used general linear modeling to compare whole-brain mean neural activation and seed-to-voxel task-based functional connectivity between the flavored and unflavored inhalation runs. Contrary to our hypothesis, the flavored aerosol was associated with weaker activation than the unflavored aerosol in the brain stem and bilateral parietal-temporal-occipital region of the cortex. Instead, the flavor engaged taste-related brain regions while suppressing activation of the neural circuits typically engaged during smoking and nicotine administration. Alternatively, functional connectivity between subcortical dopaminergic brain seeds and cortical brain regions involved in motivation and reward salience were stronger during the flavored compared to unflavored aerosol run. The findings suggest that fruity and dessert-flavored e-cigarettes may dampen the reward experience of aerosol inhalation for smokers who initiate e-cigarette use by inhibiting activation of dopaminergic brain circuits. These preliminary findings may have implications for understanding how regulations on flavored e-cigarettes might impact their use as cessation aids. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).