Mindful attention reduces neural and self-reported cue-induced craving in smokers

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.

Study at a glance

Abstract

An emerging body of research suggests that mindfulness-based interventions may be beneficial for smoking cessation and the treatment of other addictive disorders. One way that mindfulness may facilitate smoking cessation is through the reduction of craving to smoking cues. The present work considers whether mindful attention can reduce self-reported and neural markers of cue-induced craving in treatment seeking smokers. Forty-seven (n = 47) meditation-naïve treatment-seeking smokers (12-h abstinent from smoking) viewed and made ratings of smoking and neutral images while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants were trained and instructed to view these images passively or with mindful attention. Results indicated that mindful attention reduced self-reported craving to smoking images, and reduced neural activity in a craving-related region of subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC). Moreover, a psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that mindful attention reduced functional connectivity between sgACC and other craving-related regions compared to passively viewing smoking images, suggesting that mindfulness may decouple craving neurocircuitry when viewing smoking cues. These results provide an initial indication that mindful attention may describe a 'bottom-up' attention to one's present moment experience in ways that can help reduce subjective and neural reactivity to smoking cues in smokers.