ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2015
Reward Anticipation Is Differentially Modulated by Varenicline and Nicotine in Smokers.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Time-varying mediated effects of the nicotine patch on smoking before and after a quit attempt when it is added to varenicline and counseling.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2026Trial
- Comparative effects of varenicline or combination nicotine replacement therapy versus patch monotherapy on candidate mediators of early abstinence in a smoking cessation attempt.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Trial
- Effects of Alcohol Cue Reactivity on Subsequent Treatment Outcomes Among Treatment-Seeking Individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder: A Multisite Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of Varenicline.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Trial
- Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Applied to the Dorsolateral and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortices in Smokers Modifies Cognitive Circuits Implicated in the Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2020Trial
- Nicotine Increases Activation to Anticipatory Valence Cues in Anterior Insula and Striatum.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2018Trial
- Functional network connectivity predicts treatment outcome during treatment of nicotine use disorder.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2017Trial
- Neural Signatures of Cognitive Flexibility and Reward Sensitivity Following Nicotinic Receptor Stimulation in Dependent Smokers: A Randomized Trial.JAMA psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Individual differences in brain responses to cigarette-related cues and pleasant stimuli in young smokers.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2016Trial
- A Preliminary Examination of Reward Processing and Loneliness in Cigarette Smokers.Substance use & misuse · 2026Article
- Blunted reward-related striatal activity and behavioral disinhibition as a pathway to adolescent cannabis and e-cigarette use.Frontiers in adolescent medicine · 2026Article
- Nicotine enhances the ability of cues to control behavior and evoke dopamine release in the dorsolateral striatum.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2025Article
- Changes in distinct brain systems identified with fMRI during smoking cessation treatment with varenicline: a review.Psychopharmacology · 2024Review
- Methylphenidate as a treatment option for substance use disorder: a transdiagnostic perspective.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- The association of amygdala-insula functional connectivity and adolescent e-cigarette use via sleep problems and depressive symptoms.Addictive behaviors · 2022Article
- Anhedonia in Nicotine Dependence.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2022Review
- Effects of environmental tobacco smoke exposure on brain functioning in never-smoking adolescents.Brain and behavior · 2020Article
- Nicotine dependence (trait) and acute nicotinic stimulation (state) modulate attention but not inhibitory control: converging fMRI evidence from Go-Nogo and Flanker tasks.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Article
- Habenular and striatal activity during performance feedback are differentially linked with state-like and trait-like aspects of tobacco use disorder.Science advances · 2019Article
- The Effects of Nicotine and Tobacco Use on Brain Reward Function: Interaction With Nicotine Dependence Severity.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2019Article
- Nicotine Abstinence Influences the Calculation of Salience in Discrete Insular Circuits.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Recidivism rates for cigarette smokers following treatment often exceed 80%. Varenicline is the most efficacious pharmacotherapy currently available with cessation rates of 25-35% following a year of treatment. Although the in vivo binding properties are well known, varenicline's neurobiological mechanisms of action are still poorly understood. Varenicline acts as a nicotinic receptor partial agonist or antagonist depending on the presence or absence of nicotine and has been implicated in the reduction of reward signaling more broadly. The current study probed anticipatory reward processing using a revised monetary incentive delay task during fMRI in cohorts of smokers and non-smokers who completed a two-drug, placebo-controlled, double-blind crossover study. All participants underwent ~17 days of order-balanced varenicline and placebo pill administration and were scanned under each condition wearing a transdermal nicotine or placebo patch. Consistent with nicotine's ability to enhance the rewarding properties of nondrug stimuli, acute nicotine administration enhanced activation in response to reward-predicting monetary cues in both smokers and non-smokers. In contrast, varenicline reduced gain magnitude processing, but did so only in smokers. These results suggest that varenicline's downregulation of anticipatory reward processing in smokers, in addition to its previously demonstrated reduction in the negative affect associated with withdrawal, independently and additively alter distinct brain circuits. These effects likely contribute to varenicline's efficacy as a pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation.
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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.