Neural Mechanisms Underlying Enhanced Episodic Memory for Drug Associations in Smokers
Poster No:
899
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Jeung-Hyun Lee1, Maria Jieun Hwang1, Sang Ah Lee2, Woo-Young Ahn1
Institutions:
1Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, 2Seoul National University, Gwanak-gu, Seoul
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Episodic memory plays a crucial role in drug-associated decisions (Bornstein & Pickard, 2020; Goldfarb et al., 2020). Drug experiences, including spatial context and emotions linked to drug consumption are encoded and retrieved to induce craving and impulse to smoke. While literature suggests that it is a major contributor to relapse in smokers (Janes et al., 2015), the link between retrieval of drug-associated memories and smoking choice remains unclear. The current study aimed to (1) test if smokers show enhanced memory accuracy for smoking-related associations and (2) investigate the neural correlates of the link.
Methods:
Forty-three smokers participated in the protocol of visiting the lab for two consecutive days (Lee et al., 2023). On Day 1, participants formed associations between visual stimuli of smoking/neutral items and sceneries. On Day 2 (24 hours later), participants were exposed to an acute laboratory-based stressor (socially evaluated cold pressor test, SECPT, Schwabe & Wolf, 2013) or a matched control condition. Then, participants recognized a specific item given its associated place and rated preference of all the stimuli during fMRI scanning. We distinguished the accuracy of memory into specific (i.e., precisely correct) or gist (i.e., lure items with similar content) categories. Three participants did not take part in the fMRI scanning due to claustrophobic symptoms, 5 participants were rejected due to excessive head motion, and 8 participants were removed from the analysis due to technical issues. In total, 27 participants (Stress group=17, Control group=10) were included in the following analyses.
Results:
Behavior analysis confirmed that smokers showed a significantly better performance in memory retrieval of smoking-related associations, compared to neutral associations (F(1, 94)=4.68, p=0.03, Figure A). The insula and the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) were activated during memory retrieval with the [smoking vs neutral] contrast (p<0.001, uncorrected, Figure B, left). The precuneus was activated during preference rating with the [smoking vs neutral] contrast (p<0.001, uncorrected, Figure B, right). Here, the beta values from the precuneus were positively correlated with correct retrieval of smoking associations and the mean confidence level (Figure C).
·Figure 1.
Conclusions:
The findings demonstrate that smokers exhibit enhanced episodic memory performance for smoking-related associations. Moreover, fMRI results suggest that regions involved in valuation (e.g., the mPFC and the insula) and self-referential processing (e.g., the precuneus) play a key role in retrieving smoking-related associations.
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Decision Making 1
Learning and Memory:
Long-Term Memory (Episodic and Semantic) 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Keywords:
Addictions
Memory
Other - Stress
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Goldfarb EV, Fogelman N, Sinha R. (2020), Memory biases in alcohol use disorder: enhanced memory for contexts associated with alcohol prospectively predicts alcohol use outcomes. Neuropsychopharmacology. 45(8), pp. 1297–1305.
Janes AC, Ross RS, Farmer S, et al. (2015). Memory retrieval of smoking‐related images induce greater insula activation as revealed by an fMRI‐based delayed matching to sample task. Addiction Biology, 20(2), pp. 349–356.
Lee JH, Kang S, Maier SU, Lee SA, Goldfarb EV, Ahn WY. (2023). Acute Stress Enhances Memory and Preference for Smoking-Related Associations in Smokers, Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Schwabe L, Wolf OT. (2013). Stress and multiple memory systems: from “thinking” to “doing”, Trends in Cognitive Science, 17(2), pp. 60–68.