Introduction: Growing evidence suggests that attentional bias to, and distraction by, emotional stimuli may moderate affective states and motivation for nicotine and other drug use.
Methods: The present study assessed the effects of nicotine and dopamine receptor genotype on distraction by emotional pictures, during a modified spatial attention task, in 46 overnight-deprived smokers.
Results: Relative to placebo, 14mg nicotine patch produced shorter overall reaction times (RTs) and individuals with two dopamine type 2 receptor (DRD2) A2 alleles exhibited the greatest RT benefit from nicotine following emotionally negative pictures after the longest cue-target delay (800ms), but benefitted least from nicotine following positive pictures after the shortest delay (400ms). In contrast, at the shortest delay, A1 carriers did not benefit from nicotine following emotionally negative pictures but did following positive ones.
Conclusions: These genetic differences in the effects of nicotine on attention immediately following emotionally positive versus negative stimuli may reflect differential excitatory and inhibitory transmitter processes related to approach (reward) and avoidance (punishment) sensitivities of dopamine-related neural networks that support positive and negative affect.
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