Presenting Author:

Amanda Mathew, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator:

Amanda Mathew, Ph.D.

Department:

Preventive Medicine

Keywords:

Cigarette smoking, nicotine dependence, depressive disorder, negative affect, withdrawal

Location:

Ryan Family Atrium, Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center

C112 - Clinical

Depression Confers Vulnerability to Negative Affect and Withdrawal-Induced Tobacco Choice

Although smoking and depression commonly co-occur, the specific mechanisms underlying this association remain poorly understood. Depression may drive smoking persistence by enhancing sensitivity to internal states of negative affect and acute withdrawal, and promoting tobacco-seeking behavior in response to these states. In this human laboratory study, we examined performance on a mood-induced tobacco choice task in depressed and non-depressed smokers. Participants were 29 smokers aged 18-65 who smoked >10 cigarettes/day. Nine participants endorsed a current episode of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), as determined by the MINI International Neuropsychiatric interview, while the remainder were non-depressed. Participants completed two sessions one week apart, with smoking as normal prior to the session 1, and at least 6 hours of nicotine deprivation prior to session 2. Abstinence was confirmed by CO of either <10 ppm or less than half baseline value. The effect of negative mood induction on tobacco-seeking was measured in both sessions using a method which has been previously validated. Baseline tobacco choice was first indexed by participants’ preference to view smoking vs. food images. Negative mood was then induced by a series of negative ruminative statements and sad music, before tobacco choice was again measured. We used ANOVA models to examine the main effect of group (MDD+ vs. MDD-) and interaction with abstinence status (non-deprived vs. deprived) as predictors of tobacco choice at baseline and following negative mood induction. In the smoking as normal session 1, MDD+ smokers showed a greater increase in tobacco choice following negative mood induction from baseline, as compared to MDD- smokers (p=.046). MDD+ smokers also showed a greater increase in baseline tobacco choice between the non-deprived and deprived study sessions, relative to MDD- smokers (p=.023). Finally, negative affect and withdrawal induced tobacco choice were highly correlated (r=.67, p<.001). In conclusion, the relationship between depression and smoking persistence may be driven by a comparable vulnerability to increases in tobacco-seeking in response to both negative affective and acute withdrawal states.