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Altered spontaneous activity of posterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal gyrus are associated with a smoking cessation treatment outcome using varenicline revealed by regional homogeneity

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Abstract

Compared to nonsmokers, smokers exhibit a number of potentially important differences in regional brain function. However, little is known about the associations between the local spontaneous brain activity and smoking cessation treatment outcomes. In the present analysis, we aimed to evaluate whether the local features of spontaneous brain activity prior to the target quit date was associated with the smoking cessation outcomes. All the participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans and smoking-related behavioral assessments. After a 12-week treatment with varenicline, 23 smokers succeeded in quitting smoking and 32 failed. Smokers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning prior to an open label smoking cessation treatment trial. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) was used to measure spontaneous brain activity, and whole-brain voxel-wise comparisons of ReHo were performed to detect brain regions with altered spontaneous brain activity between relapser and quitter groups. After controlling for potentially confounding factors including years of education, years smoked, cigarettes smoked per day and FTND score as covariates, compared to quitters, relapsers displayed significantly decreased ReHo in bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), as well as increased ReHo in left superior temporal gyrus (STG). These preliminary results suggest that regional brain function variables may be promising predictors of smoking relapse. This study provided novel insights into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying smoking relapse. A deeper understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms associated with relapse may result in novel pharmacological and behavioral interventions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, NO.88 Jiefang Road, Hangzhou, 310009, China

    Chao Wang, Zhujing Shen, Peiyu Huang, Wei Qian, Xinfeng Yu, Jianzhong Sun & Minming Zhang

  2. Department of Psychiatry, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China

    Hualiang Yu

  3. Neuroimaging Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, 21224, USA

    Yihong Yang

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  1. Chao Wang
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  2. Zhujing Shen
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  5. Xinfeng Yu
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Correspondence to Minming Zhang.

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This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China surface project (grant nos. 81171310) and science and technology planning project of Zhejiang Province (grant 2011C23094).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Wang, C., Shen, Z., Huang, P. et al. Altered spontaneous activity of posterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal gyrus are associated with a smoking cessation treatment outcome using varenicline revealed by regional homogeneity. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11, 611–618 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9538-1

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