A more recent study examined (Brody et al. 2007) brain activation during resistance of the urge to smoke when smokers were presented with cigarette-related cues. In this study, activation was found in the cigarette cue resist condition compared with the cigarette cue crave condition in the left dorsal ACC, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and precuneus. Other findings of this study include lower magnetic resonance signal for the cigarette cue resist in the cuneus bilaterally, left lateral occipital gyrus, and right postcentral gyrus. These activations and deactivations were stronger when the cigarette cue resist condition was compared with the neutral cue condition. The urge to smoke scale (craving) score had positive correlations with MR signal in the medial aspect of superior frontal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, precuneus, inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula, bilateral corpus callosum, left precentral gyrus, putamen, and middle frontal gyrus, and right lingual gyrus extending to the fusiform gyrus. Negative correlations were found for the cuneus, left occipital gyrus, anterior temporal lobe, postcentral gyrus, insula, and right angular gyrus. This study concludes that active suppression of craving during cigarette cue exposure is associated with activation of limbic and related brain regions and deactivation of primary sensory and motor cortices.
