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Addictive substances hijack reward learning. Investigators examined methods to reverse this process in 87 treatment-seeking smokers, who were randomized to two sessions of either retrieval of smoking memory followed by extinction (R-E; the experimental approach) or retrieval of nonsmoking memory followed by extinction (NR-E). Participants had not smoked for 3 days (mean age, 48; mean duration of smoking, 28 years; mean previous attempts to quit, 6).
Sessions consisted of a 5-minute video of either smoking or neutral material, 10 minutes of no exposure, and 1 hour of exposure to smoking-related photos without access to smoking or nicotine.
Compared with the NR-E group, the R-E group had significantly greater decreases in craving in response to…