Tobacco Images Choice and Its Association with Craving and Dependence in Cigarette Smokers

Abstract

IntroductionIncreased salience of drug-related cues over non-drug reinforcers can drive drug use and contribute to tobacco use disorder (TUD). An important scientific and clinical goal is to effectively measure this elevated drug-seeking behavior in TUD. However, most TUD assessments rely on self-reported cravings and cigarette consumption, not providing an objective measure of the impact of drug-cues on biasing behavior towards drugs. The probabilistic image choice (PIC) task investigates the choice of viewing drug-related pictures as compared to other salient pictures (e.g., pleasant and unpleasant). This study aimed to develop and validate the PIC task for TUD and evaluate the associations between behavioral choice and tobacco craving, daily cigarette consumption, quit attempts and motivation to quit, and nicotine dependence (the Fagerstrom score). MethodsWe recruited 468 smokers and 121 nonsmokers using the Prolific online platform. Participants performed the PIC task twice (at a one-month interval) and completed other measures relevant to TUD. Resultscompared to nonsmokers, tobacco smokers selected to view significantly more tobacco images and less pleasant (non-drug reinforcer) images, a profile that remained stable at retest. Individual differences in choice of tobacco as compared to pleasant images on the PIC task were associated with craving but not with the other tobacco dependence measures, suggesting that the task may serve as a behavioral proxy measure of drug "wanting" rather than of cumulative nicotine exposure or physical dependence. Conclusionsthese results suggest that the PIC task can be a valuable tool for objectively assessing craving-associated tobacco seeking in TUD. Implications section, which should provide a brief description about what the study adds. Most of the current measures of tobacco use disorder (TUD) rely on self-reports of consumption, dependence and craving and do not take into consideration the role of drug-related cues in driving tobacco seeking. This study shows that the probabilistic image choice (PIC) task provides an objective, reliable proxy measure of tobacco image seeking behavior in cigarette smokers that is linked to craving (desire) for smoking but not to other measures of TUD. Therefore, the PIC task may be a useful complementary tool for the classification, diagnosis, and prognosis of TUD.