Participants: 21 smokers (13M, ages 18-45) and 21 age-, gender-, race-, and education-matched controls.

Procedure: • Stimuli were 100 photographs:

• 50 food cues • 50 cigarette cues

• All were previously shown to induce craving for food and cigarettes, respectively.

• Each image was preceded by instruction:1. NOW: focus on the immediate sensory experience of

consuming the substance depicted (food or cigarette)2. LATER: focus on the long-term consequences of

prolonged use• Ss were instructed to maintain the focus on

NOW/LATER for the duration of stimulus• Each stimulus was then rated for desirability (“How

much do you want to consume this item right now?”)Imaging Acquisition and Analysis:• 28 4mm slices on 1.5T GE Scanner, TR 2 secs• Pre-processing: SPM5, Stats: BrainVoyager v1.9

The Neural Bases of Regulating Appetitive Impulses Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Hedy Kober*, Ethan Kross, & Kevin Ochsner

Department of Psychology, Columbia University

Introduction

Questions

Methods

Behavioral Results

Summary & Conclusions

• Effective emotion regulation is critical for mental and physical health. • Many studies have examined cognitive mechanisms for regulating negative emotions - few have examined other emotions.• Substance abusers, for example, may be unable to regulate appetitive impulses - their craving for a given substance.• The present studies investigate whether substance abusers can use cognitive strategies to regulate such appetitive impulses in an ecologically valid paradigm. • The medial Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) and the ventral striatum (VS) have been identified as areas that contribute to processing of appetitive stimuli, and to drug craving in particular.

1. Can cigarette smokers successfully decrease cravings for a non-abused substance (food)?

2. Can cigarette smokers successfully decrease cravings for their substance of abuse (cigarettes)?

3. Will smokers be less successful than their matched controls at decreasing cravings for the non-abused substance (food)?

4. Will successful regulation of craving modulate activity in brain regions typically associated with craving (e.g. OFC, VS)?

5. Will brain activity for smokers differ for the non-abused substance compared to the abuse substance?

6. Will brain activity for smokers differ from controls?

1. Smokers successfully decrease cravings for a non-abused substance (food).

2. Smokers successfully decrease cravings for their substance of abuse (cigarettes).

3. Smokers are as successful as their matched controls at decreasing cravings for the non-abused substance (food).

4. Successful regulation of craving modulates activity in brain regions typically associated with craving. Significant correlations between activity in the NOW > LATER contrast and difference scores of reported desire were found in the Orbitofrontal Cortex and Ventral Striatum.

5. Brain activity for smokers differs for the non-abused substance (food) compared to the abused substance (cigarettes).

• In VS, the correlation between activity with the corresponding effective regulation score was significant for food but not for cigarettes.

• In OFC, the correlation between activity with the corresponding effective regulation score was significant for food but not for cigarettes.

• This suggests that VS and OFC activity differentiates between abused and non abused substances, and is less influenced by regulation of desire for the abused substance.

1. Brain activity does not differ between smokers and controls for the non-abused stimulus (food).

2. This suggests that brain activity in these regions can be modulated as strongly by effective regulation of desire for food in smokers and controls.

Prospects & Promise• Seed analyses will allow us to examine connectivity among

co-activated brain regions.• Individual differences may further shed light on differential

regulatory abilities across participants.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank NSF for Graduate Research Fellowship to Hedy Kober, and NIDA for grant 1R01-DA022541-01 to Kevin N. Ochsner.

Answer 4: YES, in smokers, successful regulation of craving modulates activity in “reward” areas previously associated with craving.

Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Unit

Dept. of Psychology1190 Amsterdam Ave.406 Schermerhorn HallNew York, NY 10027

www.scan.psych.columbia.edu

• As expected, Smokers reported greater desire for cigarettes compared to controls• Answer 1: YES, smokers were able to successfully decrease craving for the non-abused substance• Answer 2: YES, smokers were able to successfully decrease craving for the abused substance• Answer 3: NO, smokers were not less successful than their matched controls in decreasing craving for the non-abused substance.

- OFC and Ventral Striatum activity in NOW> LATER contrast correlates with difference scores of reported desire between conditions (large difference scores indicate successful decrease in craving in NOW> LATER trials).

Ventral Striatum(6, 16, 1)(p = .005)

NOWStim - LATERStim beta values correlated with corresponding effective regulation scores in smokers.

(Cig: r = .152, p = n.s., Food: r = .586, p = .01)

Brain Imaging Results

*Corresponding author: hedy@psych.columbia.edu

Answer 5: YES, brain activity for smokers was different for the non-abused substance compared to the abused substance. Correlations between activity and behavioral regulation scores were different between food and cigarettes in both VS (Panel A) and in OFC (Panel B).

NOWFood - LATERFood beta values correlated with effective regulation scores for food (Smokers: r = .586 p = .01, Controls: r = .524, p

= .01)

Left mOFC(-16, 41, -14)

p = .005

NOWStim - LATERStim beta values correlated with corresponding effective regulation scores in smokers.

(Cig: r = .342, p = n.s., Food: r = .523, p = .02 )

NOWFood - LATERFood beta values correlated with effective regulation scores for food

(Smokers: r = .537, p = .01, Controls: r = .523, p = .03)

Instruction2s

+

CUE6 secs

ISI~3.5s

Ratingup to 3s

+

++ + 1-2-3-4-5

how much do you want it

ITI~4.5s

NOW or

LATER+

Study 2 (fMRI)

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Smoker NonSmoker

Desire Ratings

Now_Food

Later_Food

Now_Cig

Later_Cig

*

*

*

*

*

*

In-Scanner Ratings

Answer 6: NO, brain activity for smokers was not different for the non-abused substance (food) compared to controls. Correlations between activity and behavioral regulation scores for food were similar between groups in both VS (Panel A) and OFC (Panel B).

A

A

B

B

Trial Sequence: