Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Applied to the Dorsolateral and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortices in Smokers Modifies Cognitive Circuits Implicated in the Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome.

What Was Tested

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

The nicotine withdrawal syndrome remains a major impediment to smoking cessation.

The researchers hypothesized that functional activity in cognitive control networks, and downstream amygdala circuits, would be modified by application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the left (L) dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, executive control network) and right (R) ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC, DMN).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 7 women taking part.

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

A total of 15 smokers (7 women) and 28 matched nonsmokers (14 women) participated in a randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind, exploratory crossover study of 3 tDCS conditions: anodal-(L)dlPFC/cathodal-(R)vmPFC, reversed polarity, and sham.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and crossover.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the women nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

In the crossover set-up each of the women took both Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Cognitive tasks probed withdrawal-related constructs (error monitoring, working memory, amygdalar reactivity), while simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging measured brain activity.

The researchers assessed tDCS impact on trait (nonsmokers vs. sated smokers) and state (sated vs. abstinent) smoking aspects.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Cognition, Nicotine, Prefrontal Cortex, Smokers, Smoking Cessation, Tobacco Use Cessation Devices and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation.

Author keywords: Brain stimulation, DMN, DlPFC, Functional MRI, Nicotine dependence and tDCS.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in 7 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2020 (Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging), a journal based in United States.

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