Are addiction-related memories malleable by working memory competition? Transient effects on memory vividness and nicotine craving in a randomized lab experiment.

Plain-language guide to PMID 27038191 (2016): parallel-group randomized controlled trial of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Key Facts

PMID: 27038191
Journal: Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry
Year: 2016
Study type: Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Markus W et al. (5 authors)
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.03.007

What This Study Did, in Plain Language

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Modified EMDR-procedures may also hold promise in smoking cessation attempts.

A proof-of-concept study was conducted to narrow the gap between WM-taxation experiments and clinical EMDR studies.

To this end the clinical EMDR-procedure was modified for use in a laboratory experiment.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

In the experimental group (n = 24) eye movements (EM) were induced while control group participants (n = 23) fixed their gaze (not taxing WM).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and parallel-group study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

In both cases a modified EMDR-procedure was used.

During 6 min trials, craving-inducing memories were recalled.

Craving, vividness of target memories, and smoking behavior were assessed at several variable-specific time-points between baseline (one week pre-intervention) and one week follow-up.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Craving, Emotions, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, Eye Movements, Memory, Short-Term, Nicotine and Smoking.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Addiction, EMDR and Working memory taxation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and parallel-group study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Results are reported in around 6 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2016 (Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.

Our Notes on the Compound

Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide): Pure nicotine as a signaling tool, separated from smoking and vaping.

Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in the library

Source: PubMed record. This explanation is written by PeptideWhiz from the public record. For research and education only. Not medical advice; no dosing information is given.