ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Belief about nicotine selectively modulates value and reward prediction error signals in smokers.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain network dysfunctions in addiction: a meta-analysis of resting-state functional connectivity.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Combining neuroimaging and brain stimulation to test alternative causal pathways for nicotine addiction in schizophrenia.Brain stimulationTrial
- Negative Contextual Valence Unmasks Altered Counterfactual Decision-Making in Major Depressive Disorder.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- A computational mechanism linking momentary craving and decision-making in alcohol drinkers and cannabis users.Nature. Mental health · 2026Article
- An interoceptive model of energy allostasis linking metabolic and mental health.Science advances · 2025Review
- Aberrant neural computation of social controllability in nicotine-dependent humans.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Nicotine-related beliefs induce dose-dependent responses in the human brain.Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- Aberrant neural computation of social controllability in nicotine-dependent humans.Research square · 2024Article
- Longing to act: Bayesian inference as a framework for craving in behavioral addiction.Addictive behaviors · 2023Review
- How Instructions, Learning, and Expectations Shape Pain and Neurobiological Responses.Annual review of neuroscience · 2023Review
- Computational models of behavioral addictions: State of the art and future directions.Addictive behaviors · 2023Review
- Translational models of addiction phenotypes to advance addiction pharmacotherapy.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Review
- Effects of Smoking Status and State on Intrinsic Connectivity.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2022Article
- Computational theory-driven studies of reinforcement learning and decision-making in addiction: What have we learned?Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2021Article
- Differences in acute reinforcement across reduced nicotine content cigarettes.Psychopharmacology · 2020Article
- Research on Behavioral Discrimination of Nicotine May Inform FDA Policy on Setting a Maximum Nicotine Content in Cigarettes.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2019Article
- Modeling subjective belief states in computational psychiatry: interoceptive inference as a candidate framework.Psychopharmacology · 2019Article
- Approach bias for erotic stimuli in heterosexual male college students who use pornography.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2019Article
- Expectation effects on brain dopamine responses to methylphenidate in cocaine use disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2019Article
- Neurofeedback and the Neural Representation of Self: Lessons From Awake State and Sleep.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Little is known about how prior beliefs impact biophysically described processes in the presence of neuroactive drugs, which presents a profound challenge to the understanding of the mechanisms and treatments of addiction. We engineered smokers' prior beliefs about the presence of nicotine in a cigarette smoked before a functional magnetic resonance imaging session where subjects carried out a sequential choice task. Using a model-based approach, we show that smokers' beliefs about nicotine specifically modulated learning signals (value and reward prediction error) defined by a computational model of mesolimbic dopamine systems. Belief of "no nicotine in cigarette" (compared with "nicotine in cigarette") strongly diminished neural responses in the striatum to value and reward prediction errors and reduced the impact of both on smokers' choices. These effects of belief could not be explained by global changes in visual attention and were specific to value and reward prediction errors. Thus, by modulating the expression of computationally explicit signals important for valuation and choice, beliefs can override the physical presence of a potent neuroactive compound like nicotine. These selective effects of belief demonstrate that belief can modulate model-based parameters important for learning. The implications of these findings may be far ranging because belief-dependent effects on learning signals could impact a host of other behaviors in addiction as well as in other mental health problems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.