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Eliciting Nicotine Craving with Virtual Smoking Cues

2014; Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.; Volume: 17; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1089/cyber.2013.0329

2152-2723

Pedro Gamito, Jorge Oliveira, André Baptista, Diogo Morais, Paulo Lopes, Pedro J. Rosa, Nuno Santos, Rodrigo Brito,

Behavioral Health and Interventions

Craving is a strong desire to consume that emerges in every case of substance addiction. Previous studies have shown that eliciting craving with an exposure cues protocol can be a useful option for the treatment of nicotine dependence. Thus, the main goal of this study was to develop a virtual platform in order to induce craving in smokers. Fifty-five undergraduate students were randomly assigned to two different virtual environments: high arousal contextual cues and low arousal contextual cues scenarios (17 smokers with low nicotine dependency were excluded). An eye-tracker system was used to evaluate attention toward these cues. Eye fixation on smoking-related cues differed between smokers and nonsmokers, indicating that smokers focused more often on smoking-related cues than nonsmokers. Self-reports of craving are in agreement with these results and suggest a significant increase in craving after exposure to smoking cues. In sum, these data support the use of virtual environments for eliciting craving.