College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Susceptibility to Smoking and Nicotine Dependence in Schizophrenia(2009) Saperstein, Alice Meredith; Blanchard, Jack J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Evidence suggests that high nicotine dependence observed in schizophrenia is related to its core neuronal deficits such as abnormalities in neural synchronization and sensory gating. Some of these neuronal deficits are shown to mark schizophrenia liability, raising the possibility that the increased nicotine dependence in schizophrenia is related to its etiological factors. This study sought to investigate mechanisms of increased vulnerability to smoking and nicotine dependence in schizophrenia. The individual and interacting effects of familial vulnerability factors, neurophysiological function, and resting cortical oscillatory activity (i.e. resting EEG power) were examined. The study sample was composed of four groups including outpatients with schizophrenia, first-degree relatives of patient index probands, healthy comparison control subjects from the community, and first-degree relatives of control probands. The resulting data demonstrated a pattern of more persistent nicotine use and greater dependence among those with schizophrenia relative to non-psychiatric comparison controls. Persistent smoking was also demonstrated to be highly heritable across groups with no discernable difference in the extent to which smoking is familial in those affected or unaffected by schizophrenia. With respect to resting oscillatory activity, analyses failed to find diagnostic group differences in EEG power for the alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands and, unlike other substances of abuse, past and present nicotine use did not have a reliable effect on power in the beta frequency band. Rather, power in the gamma frequency band was significantly associated with smoking status. Furthermore, smoking was uniquely related to neurophysiological processes in probands with schizophrenia, suggesting that smoking status should be assessed in any study of information-processing dysfunction in this population. When all putative susceptibility factors were considered together, diagnosis of schizophrenia and family history of smoking best captured what may be characterized as an underlying (i.e. neurobiological) vulnerability to nicotine dependence, rather than circumscribed indices of electrophysiological functioning. Future studies might be implemented to refine the association between smoking and indices of electrophysiological function and, importantly, relate diagnostic or electrophysiological susceptibility factors to mediating processes and observable behaviors associated with aberrant patterns of nicotine use and dependence in persons with schizophrenia.Item A Comprehensive Assessment of Distress Tolerance as a Predictor of Early Smoking Lapse(2008-04-08) Stipelman, Brooke Allison; Lejuez, Carl W; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The CDC estimates that approximately 20.9% of U.S. adults currently smoke. Moreover, cigarette smoking continues to be the leading preventable cause of death and disability in the United States making it is a significant public health problem. Although 70% of smokers express a desire to quit, relapse is quite common, with rates as high as 60-90% depending on the method of quitting used. Moreover, many smokers who attempt to quit, lapse within a few days, and many of these individuals ultimately resume smoking and are not able to recover to achieve abstinence. The initial experience of smoking cessation is stressful and is associated with a number of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Therefore, one particular hypothesis suggests that how an individual reacts to and tolerates these uncomfortable feelings may be a key contributing factor of relapse. This threshold for tolerating physical and psychological stress is known as distress tolerance. While early evidence has suggested that distress tolerance is associated with duration of quit attempts, to date, no study has examined the effects of distress tolerance across physical, psychological and biological domains on a number of other relapse predictors (e.g. negative affect, anxiety sensitivity and withdrawal symptoms) in determining smoking outcome. Therefore, the following study looked at the role of these variables in predicting smoking outcome in a group of 58 adult smokers who entered a smoking cessation treatment study. As hypothesized, both measures of physical distress tolerance and one measure of psychological distress tolerance significantly predicted time to smoking lapse above and beyond other smoking related variables. There was no relationship between smoking abstinence and self-report and biological measures of distress tolerance. There were also no significant findings with respect to any affect related smoking variables. Implications and future directions are addressed.Item Smoking and Neurophysiological Markers of Information Processing in Schizophrenia(2007-05-25) Saperstein, Alice Meredith; Blanchard, Jack J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The primary aim of this study was to compare patterns of nicotine consumption among patients with schizophrenia and a matched community control sample. Assessments included self-report and biological indexes of nicotine use as well as behavioral measures of smoking topography. Secondarily, this study tested the hypothesis that aspects of nicotine consumption are more closely associated with abnormalities in sensory gating and eye tracking performance among smokers with schizophrenia. Results from 50 patient and 10 healthy control smokers provided some evidence to support the primary hypothesis; biological indexes provided the most robust evidence that patients with schizophrenia extract more nicotine from smoking cigarettes than controls. Both groups demonstrated significant relationships between measures of nicotine dependence and neurophysiological functions. Patterns of results suggest that patients are less able to regulate smoking behaviors or efficiently utilize nicotine to enhance information processing. Additional factors likely contribute to smoking phenomena observed among patients with schizophrenia.