Mindful attention reduces neural and self-reported cue-induced craving in smokers
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience November 22, 2011 Cecilia Westbrook, J. David Creswell, Golnaz Tabibnia et al. 278 citations
Mindful attention reduces both self-reported craving and brain activity linked to craving in smokers. Forty-seven meditation-naïve smokers who had not smoked for 12 hours viewed smoking and neutral images during fMRI, either passively or with mindful attention. Mindful attention lowered self-reported craving to smoking images and decreased neural activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), a craving-related brain region. It also reduced functional connectivity between sgACC and other craving-related regions, suggesting mindfulness decouples craving neurocircuitry. This indicates mindful attention may help reduce subjective and neural reactivity to smoking cues.