Nicotine remains a major cause of health problems in the US and around the world. Insight
into the behavioral changes induced by nicotine use may help advance the understanding of the
mechanisms underlying the maintenance of nicotine addiction and thus the important factors
involved in the quitting process. Pavlovian bias is a phenomenon that includes an approach
tendency toward rewarding cues and an action withdrawal tendency in response to punishments.
This phenomenon may be particularly relevant to nicotine users. The current study will use an
experimental, within-subjects, repeated-measured design to investigate whether acute nicotine
administration influences individual Pavlovian bias in nicotine users. By recruiting
participants from the University of Southern California (USC) community and contacting
participants of previous nicotine-related studies of the Addiction and Self-Control
Laboratory at USC, the investigators will enroll forty adult nicotine users in the study.
Participants will come to the lab twice after a 10-hour nicotine fast. At each lab visit,
participants will undergo a vaping session prior to completing the study tasks. The content
of the e-liquid in the vape will vary by nicotine content: the vape will either contain
nicotine or not. Subsequent to vaping, participants will complete a version of the Go/No-Go
task which will measure their individual levels of Pavlovian bias. The investigators will
compare performance on the task across the two conditions within each participant: on- and
off- nicotine, after controlling for nicotine withdrawal and nicotine tolerance. Based on
past research on nicotine, the researchers anticipate that acute nicotine administration will
be associated with higher levels of Pavlovian bias, compared to the off-nicotine condition.
Specifically, two patterns are expected to arise: a higher likelihood of making a go-response
in the "win reward" condition and a higher likelihood of making a no-go response in the
"avoid losing" condition, regardless of whether it is a "go" or "no-go" trial. Participants
will also complete a measure of their working memory capacity. The investigators will conduct
exploratory analyses for the relationship between different nicotine conditions and working
memory capacity.