Smokers can learn to influence their urge to smoke

Forty heavy smokers participated in a within-subject experiment in which th e association between smoking-related cues and nicotine intake was made con ditional on two neutral stimuli. Two colored cards indicated whether smokin g-related cues, placed on the cards, would or would not be followed by nico tine intake. Tn the presence of each card, subjects were asked to rank thei r urge to smoke before and during the exposure to the smoking cues. The res ults of the present study revealed that the predictive value of a cue, in r egard to the occurrence of nicotine intake, strongly determines its ability to generate craving. It was concluded that participants learned a modified predictive value of smoking cues, through a process of conditioning, and i n this way influenced their urge to smoke. Furthermore, the findings sugges t the reconditioning of CS-US associations as an aid in the treatment of sm oking addiction. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.