Gene-gene interactions are proposed as one important component of the genetic architecture of complex diseases, and are just beginning to be evaluated in the context of genome wide association studies (GWAS). In addition to detecting epistasis, a benefit to interaction analysis is that it also increases power to detect weak main effects. We conducted a knowledge-driven interaction analysis of a GWAS of 931 multiple sclerosis trios to discover gene-gene interactions within established biological contexts. We identify heterogeneous signals, including a gene-gene interaction between CHRM3 and MYLK (joint p = 0.0002), an interaction between two phospholipase-β isoforms, PLCβ1 & PLCβ4 (joint p = 0.0098), and a modest interaction between ACTN1 and MYH9 (joint p = 0.0326), all localized to calcium-signaled cytoskeletal regulation. Furthermore, we discover a main effect (joint p = 5.2E-5) previously unidentified by single-locus analysis within another related gene, SCIN, a calcium-binding cytoskeleton regulatory protein. This work illustrates that knowledge-driven interaction analysis of GWAS data is a feasible approach to identify new genetic effects. The results of this study are among the first gene-gene interactions and non-immune susceptibility loci for multiple sclerosis. Further, the implicated genes cluster within inter-related biological mechanisms that suggest a neurodegenerative component to multiple sclerosis.

Impaired attention (‘difficulty concentrating') is a cognitive symptom of nicotine withdrawal that may be an important contributor to smoking relapse. However, the neurobiological basis of this effect and the potentially beneficial effects of nicotine replacement therapy both remain unclear. We used functional MRI with simultaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to define brain activity correlates of cognitive impairment with short-term smoking cessation in habitual smokers and the effects of nicotine replacement. We found that irrespective of treatment (ie nicotine or placebo) EEG α power was negatively correlated with increased activation during performance of a rapid visual information processing (RVIP) task in dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsal anterior cingulate, parietal, and insular cortices, as well as, caudate, and thalamus. Relative to placebo, nicotine replacement further increased the α-correlated activation across these regions. We also found that EEG α power was negatively correlated with RVIP-induced deactivation in regions comprising the ‘default mode' network (ie angular gyrus, cuneus, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). These α-correlated deactivations were further reduced by nicotine. These findings confirm that effects of nicotine on cognition during short-term smoking cessation occur with modulation of neuronal sources common to the generation of both the blood oxygen-level-dependent and α EEG signals. Our observations thus demonstrate that nicotine replacement in smokers has direct pharmacological effects on brain neuronal activity modulating cognitive networks.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided the opportunity to safely investigate the workings of the human brain. This paper focuses on its use in the field of human appetitive behaviour and its impact in obesity research. In the present absence of any safe or effective centrally acting appetite suppressants, a better understanding of how appetite is controlled is vital for the development of new antiobesity pharmacotherapies. Early functional imaging techniques revealed an attenuation of brain reward area activity in response to visual food stimuli when humans are fed—in other words, the physiological state of hunger somehow increases the appeal value of food. Later studies have investigated the action of appetite modulating hormones on the fMRI signal, showing how the attenuation of brain reward region activity that follows feeding can be recreated in the fasted state by the administration of anorectic gut hormones. Furthermore, differences in brain activity between obese and lean individuals have provided clues about the possible aetiology of overeating. The hypothalamus acts as a central gateway modulating homeostatic and nonhomeostatic drives to eat. As fMRI techniques constantly improve, functional data regarding the role of this small but hugely important structure in appetite control is emerging.

Summary

Obesity is a major public health issue worldwide. Understanding how the brain controls appetite offers promising inroads toward new therapies for obesity. Peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) are coreleased postprandially and reduce appetite and inhibit food intake when administered to humans. However, the effects of GLP-1 and the ways in which PYY and GLP-1 act together to modulate brain activity in humans are unknown. Here, we have used functional MRI to determine these effects in healthy, normal-weight human subjects and compared them to those seen physiologically following a meal. We provide a demonstration that the combined administration of PYY3-36 and GLP-17-36 amide to fasted human subjects leads to similar reductions in subsequent energy intake and brain activity, as observed physiologically following feeding.

Highlights

► Coadministration of PYY3-36 and GLP-17-36 amide reduces food intake and brain activity ► The reduction in brain activity is notable in areas that control appetitive behavior ► Changes in food intake and brain activity are similar to that observed after a meal

Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain. Appropriate transmission of nerve impulses through glutamatergic synapses is required throughout the brain and forms the basis of many processes including learning and memory. However, abnormally high levels of extracellular brain glutamate can lead to neuroaxonal cell death. We have previously reported elevated glutamate levels in the brains of patients suffering from multiple sclerosis. Here two complementary analyses to assess the extent of genomic control over glutamate levels were used. First, a genome-wide association analysis in 382 patients with multiple sclerosis using brain glutamate concentration as a quantitative trait was conducted. In a second approach, a protein interaction network was used to find associated genes within the same pathway. The top associated marker was rs794185 (P < 6.44 × 10−7), a non-coding single nucleotide polymorphism within the gene sulphatase modifying factor 1. Our pathway approach identified a module composed of 70 genes with high relevance to glutamate biology. Individuals carrying a higher number of associated alleles from genes in this module showed the highest levels of glutamate. These individuals also showed greater decreases in N-acetylaspartate and in brain volume over 1 year of follow-up. Patients were then stratified by the amount of annual brain volume loss and the same approach was performed in the ‘high’ (n = 250) and ‘low’ (n = 132) neurodegeneration groups. The association with rs794185 was highly significant in the group with high neurodegeneration. Further, results from the network-based pathway analysis remained largely unchanged even after stratification. Results from these analyses indicated that variance in the activity of neurochemical pathways implicated in neurodegeneration is explained, at least in part, by the inheritance of common genetic polymorphisms. Spectroscopy-based imaging provides a novel quantitative endophenotype for genetic association studies directed towards identifying new factors that contribute to the heterogeneity of clinical expression of multiple sclerosis.

[11C]PBR28, a radioligand targeting the translocator protein (TSPO), does not produce a specific binding signal in approximately 14% of healthy volunteers. This phenomenon has not been reported for [11C]PK11195, another TSPO radioligand. We measured the specific binding signals with [3H]PK11195 and [3H]PBR28 in brain tissue from 22 donors. Overall, 23% of the samples did not generate a visually detectable specific autoradiographic signal with [3H]PBR28, although all samples showed [3H]PK11195 binding. There was a marked reduction in the affinity of [3H]PBR28 for TSPO in samples with no visible [3H]PBR28 autoradiographic signal (Ki=188±15.6 nmol/L), relative to those showing normal signal (Ki=3.4±0.5 nmol/L, P<0.001). Of this latter group, [3H]PBR28 bound with a two-site fit in 40% of cases, with affinities (Ki) of 4.0±2.4 nmol/L (high-affinity site) and 313±77 nmol/L (low-affinity site). There was no difference in Kd or Bmax for [3H]PK11195 in samples showing no [3H]PBR28 autoradiographic signal relative to those showing normal [3H]PBR28 autoradiographic signal. [3H]PK11195 bound with a single site for all samples. The existence of three different binding patterns with PBR28 (high-affinity binding (46%), low-affinity binding (23%), and two-site binding (31%)) suggests that a reduction in [11C]PBR28 binding may not be interpreted simply as a reduction in TSPO density. The functional significance of differences in binding characteristics warrants further investigation.

11C-PBR28 PET can detect the 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) expressed within macrophages. However, quantitative evaluation of the signal in brain tissue from donors with multiple sclerosis (MS) shows that PBR28 binds the TSPO with high affinity (binding affinity [Ki], ~4 nM), low affinity (Ki, ~200 nM), or mixed affinity (2 sites with Ki, ~4 nM and ~300 nM). Our study tested whether similar binding behavior could be detected in brain tissue from donors with no history of neurologic disease, with TSPO-binding PET ligands other than 11C-PBR28, for TSPO present in peripheral blood, and with human brain PET data acquired in vivo with 11C-PBR28.

Methods

The affinity of TSPO ligands was measured in the human brain post-mortem from donors with a history of MS (n = 13), donors without any history of neurologic disease (n = 20), and in platelets from healthy volunteers (n = 13). Binding potential estimates from thirty-five 11C-PBR28 PET scans from an independent sample of healthy volunteers were analyzed using a gaussian mixture model.

Results

Three binding affinity patterns were found in brains from subjects without neurologic disease in similar proportions to those reported previously from studies of MS brains. TSPO ligands showed substantial differences in affinity between subjects classified as high-affinity binders (HABs) and low-affinity binders (LABs). Differences in affinity between HABs and LABs are approximately 50-fold with PBR28, approximately 17-fold with PBR06, and approximately 4-fold with DAA1106, DPA713, and PBR111. Where differences in affinity between HABs and LABs were low (~4-fold), distinct affinities were not resolvable in binding curves for mixed-affinity binders (MABs), which appeared to express 1 class of sites with an affinity approximately equal to the mean of those for HABs and LABs. Mixed-affinity binding was detected in platelets from an independent sample (HAB, 69%; MAB, 31%), although LABs were not detected. Analysis of 11C-PBR28 PET data was not inconsistent with the existence of distinct subpopulations of HABs, MABs, and LABs.

Conclusion

With the exception of 11C-PK11195, all TSPO PET ligands in current clinical application recognize HABs, LABs, and MABs in brain tissue in vitro. Knowledge of subjects’ binding patterns will be required to accurately quantify TSPO expression in vivo using PET.

Background

Degenerative features such as neuronal, glial, synaptic and axonal loss have been identified in neocortical and other grey matter structures in patients with multiple sclerosis, but mechanisms for neurodegeneration are unclear. Cortical demyelinating lesions are a potential cause of this degeneration but the pathological and clinical significance of these lesions is uncertain, as they remain difficult to identify and study in vivo. In this study we aimed to describe and quantify cellular and subcellular pathology in the cortex of MOG-induced marmoset experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis using quantitative immunohistochemical methods.

Results

We found evidence of diffuse axonal damage occurring throughout cortical grey matter with evidence for synaptic loss and gliosis and a 13.6% decrease in neuronal size and occurring in deep cortical layers. Evidence of additional axonal damage and a 29.6–36.5% loss of oligodendrocytes was found in demyelinated cortical lesions. Leucocortical lesions also showed neuronal loss of 22.2% and a 15.8% increase in oligodendrocyte size.

Conclusions

The marmoset EAE model therefore shows both focal and generalised neurodegeneration. The generalised changes cannot be directly related to focal lesions, suggesting that they either are a consequence of diffusible inflammatory factors or secondary to remote lesions acting through trans-synaptic or retrograde degeneration.

Objective:

Activated microglia are thought to play a major role in cortical gray matter (GM) demyelination in multiple sclerosis (MS). Our objective was to evaluate microglial activation in cortical GM of patients with MS in vivo and to explore its relationship to measures of disability.

Methods:

Using PET and optimized modeling and segmentation procedures, we investigated cortical 11C-PK11195 (PK11195) binding in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), patients with secondary progressive MS (SPMS), and healthy controls. Disability was assessed with the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale (MSIS-29).

Results:

Patients with MS showed increased cortical GM PK11195 binding relative to controls, which was multifocal and highest in the postcentral, middle frontal, anterior orbital, fusiform, and parahippocampal gyri. Patients with SPMS also showed additional increases in precentral, superior parietal, lingual and anterior superior, medial and inferior temporal gyri. Total cortical GM PK11195 binding correlated with EDSS scores, with a stronger correlation for the subgroup of patients with SPMS. In patients with SPMS, PK11195 binding also correlated with MSIS-29 scores. No correlation with disability measures was seen for PK11195 binding in white matter. Higher EDSS scores correlated with higher levels of GM PK11195 binding in the postcentral gyrus for patients with RRMS and in precentral gyrus for those with SPMS.

Conclusions:

Microglial activation in cortical GM of patients with MS can be assessed in vivo. The distribution is not uniform and shows a relationship to clinical disability. We speculate that the increased PK11195 binding corresponds to enhanced microglial activation described in postmortem SPMS cortical GM.

Background

SRT2104 has been developed as a selective small molecule activator of SIRT1, a NAD+-dependent deacetylase involved in the regulation of energy homeostasis and the modulation of various metabolic pathways, including glucose metabolism, oxidative stress and lipid metabolism. SIRT1 has been suggested as putative therapeutic target in multiple age-related diseases including type 2 diabetes and dyslipidemias. We report the first clinical trial of SRT2104 in elderly volunteers.

Methods

Oral doses of 0.5 or 2.0 g SRT2104 or matching placebo were administered once daily for 28 days. Pharmacokinetic samples were collected through 24 hours post-dose on days 1 and 28. Multiple pharmacodynamic endpoints were explored with oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT), serum lipid profiles, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for assessment of whole body visceral and subcutaneous fat, maximal aerobic capacity test and muscle 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for estimation of mitochondrial oxidative capacity.

Results

SRT2104 was generally safe and well tolerated. Pharmacokinetic exposure increased less than dose-proportionally. Mean Tmax was 2–4 hours with elimination half-life of 15–20 hours. Serum cholesterol, LDL levels and triglycerides decreased with treatment. No significant changes in OGTT responses were observed. 31P MRS showed trends for more rapid calculated adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphocreatine (PCr) recoveries after exercise, consistent with increased mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.

Conclusions

SRT2104 can be safely administered in elderly individuals and has biological effects in humans that are consistent with SIRT1 activation. The results of this study support further development of SRT2104 and may be useful in dose selection for future clinical trials in patients.

Trial Registration

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00964340

Aims

Marmoset experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) has previously been shown to replicate the essential features of both white matter and grey matter lesions of MS. This study set out to investigate whether cortical atrophy occurs in marmoset EAE and whether cortical thinning is related to the presence of focal, demyelinated cortical lesions.

Methods

17 leucocortical lesions and 13 subpial lesions were identified in 6 EAE cases. Cortical thickness surrounding these lesions was recorded and compared with matched cortical areas from 5 control animals.

Results

We found a diffuse13–21% loss of cortical thickness in all areas of EAE cortex compared with control animals but there was no additional loss seen in demyelinated verses myelinated EAE cortex. These findings could not be accounted for by effects of age, sex and disease duration.

Conclusions

These findings confirm the presence of significant cortical atrophy in this model. We conclude that localised cortical demyelination is not responsible for the major part of the atrophy observed and that cortical thinning is largely due to more diffuse or more remote factors. Marmoset EAE is an invaluable tool which can be used to further investigate the cause and the substrate of cortical loss in demyelinating diseases.

Reduced fecundity, associated with severe mental disorders1, places negative selection pressure on risk alleles and may explain, in part, why common variants have not been found that confer risk of disorders such as autism2 schizophrenia3 and mental retardation4. Thus, rare variants may account for a larger fraction of the overall genetic risk than previously assumed. In contrast to rare single nucleotide mutations, rare copy number variations (CNVs) can be detected using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism arrays. This has led to the identification of CNVs associated with mental retardation4,5 and autism2. In a genome-wide search for CNVs associating with schizophrenia, we used a population-based sample to identify de novo CNVs by analysing 9,878 transmissions from parents to offspring. The 66 de novo CNVs identified were tested for association in a sample of 1,433 schizophrenia cases and 33,250 controls. Three deletions at 1q21.1, 15q11.2 and 15q13.3 showing nominal association with schizophrenia in the first sample (phase I) were followed up in a second sample of 3,285 cases and 7,951 controls (phase II). All three deletions significantly associate with schizophrenia and related psychoses in the combined sample. The identification of these rare, recurrent risk variants, having occurred independently in multiple founders and being subject to negative selection, is important in itself. CNV analysis may also point the way to the identification of additional and more prevalent risk variants in genes and pathways involved in schizophrenia.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) testing several hundred thousand SNPs have been performed in multiple sclerosis (MS) and other complex diseases. Typically, the number of markers in which the evidence for association exceeds the genome-wide significance threshold is very small, and markers that do not exceed this threshold are generally neglected. Classical statistical analysis of these datasets in MS revealed genes with known immunological functions. However, many of the markers showing modest association may represent false negatives. We hypothesize that certain combinations of genes flagged by these markers can be identified if they belong to a common biological pathway. Here we conduct a pathway-oriented analysis of two GWAS in MS that takes into account all SNPs with nominal evidence of association (P < 0.05). Gene-wise P-values were superimposed on a human protein interaction network and searches were conducted to identify sub-networks containing a higher proportion of genes associated with MS than expected by chance. These sub-networks, and others generated at random as a control, were categorized for membership of biological pathways. GWAS from eight other diseases were analyzed to assess the specificity of the pathways identified. In the MS datasets, we identified sub-networks of genes from several immunological pathways including cell adhesion, communication and signaling. Remarkably, neural pathways, namely axon-guidance and synaptic potentiation, were also over-represented in MS. In addition to the immunological pathways previously identified, we report here for the first time the potential involvement of neural pathways in MS susceptibility.

Category-related brain activations have been reported in the posterior fusiform gyri when people view pictures of tools and animals, but only a single study has observed this pattern when the stimuli were words, rather than pictures. Here we replicate these category effects with words and provide evidence that distinctive patterns of activation are task-specific. The results suggest that category-related activation in the posterior fusiform gyri can be driven either “bottom-up” by visual processing of images or “top-down” by word processing.

Functional neuroimaging has demonstrated reduced activation correlated with behavioural priming effects, a finding generally interpreted in terms of facilitated retrieval of target items in the context of related primes. Without a neutral prime, however, one cannot separate facilitatory effects of related primes from inhibitory effects of unrelated primes. Here we report an auditory semantic priming paradigm with congruent (“The boy bounced the ball”), neutral (“The next item is ball”), and incongruent (“Pasta is my favourite kind of ball”) sentence trials. As previously reported, reduced LIPC activation was observed for congruent relative to incongruent trials; however, the neutral condition allowed us to show that the effect arose from increased activation in the incongruent condition rather than reduced activation for congruent trials. Our results suggest that LIPC inhibits interference from pre-potent representations in order to select a task-appropriate target, and is consistent with its broader role in behavioural inhibition.

Studies of skilled reading (Price & Mechelli, 2005), its acquisition in children (Shaywitz et al., 2002; Turkeltaub, Gareau, Flowers, Zeffiro, & Eden, 2003), and its impairment in patients with pure alexia (Leff et al., 2001), all highlight the importance of the left posterior fusiform cortex in visual word recognition. We used visual masked priming and fMRI to elucidate the specific functional contribution of this region to reading and found that: i) unlike words, repetition of pseudowords (“solst-solst”) did not produce a neural priming effect in this region, ii) orthographically related words such as “corner-corn” did produce a neural priming effect, but iii) this orthographic priming effect was reduced when prime-target pairs were semantically related (“teacher-teach”). These findings conflict with the notion of stored visual word forms and instead suggest that this region acts as an interface between visual form information and higher-order stimulus properties such as its associated sound and meaning. Importantly, this function is not specific to reading, but is also engaged when processing any meaningful visual stimulus.

[11C]PBR28 binds the 18-kDa Translocator Protein (TSPO) and is used in positron emission tomography (PET) to detect microglial activation. However, quantitative interpretations of signal are confounded by large interindividual variability in binding affinity, which displays a trimodal distribution compatible with a codominant genetic trait. Here, we tested directly for an underlying genetic mechanism to explain this. Binding affinity of PBR28 was measured in platelets isolated from 41 human subjects and tested for association with polymorphisms in TSPO and genes encoding other proteins in the TSPO complex. Complete agreement was observed between the TSPO Ala147Thr genotype and PBR28 binding affinity phenotype (P value=3.1 × 10−13). The TSPO Ala147Thr polymorphism predicts PBR28 binding affinity in human platelets. As all second-generation TSPO PET radioligands tested hitherto display a trimodal distribution in binding affinity analogous to PBR28, testing for this polymorphism may allow quantitative interpretation of TSPO PET studies with these radioligands.

Background

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common cause of chronic neurologic disability beginning in early to middle adult life. Results from recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have substantially lengthened the list of disease loci and provide convincing evidence supporting a multifactorial and polygenic model of inheritance. Nevertheless, the knowledge of MS genetics remains incomplete, with many risk alleles still to be revealed.

Methods

We used a discovery GWAS dataset (8,844 samples, 2,124 cases and 6,720 controls) and a multi-step logistic regression protocol to identify novel genetic associations. The emerging genetic profile included 350 independent markers and was used to calculate and estimate the cumulative genetic risk in an independent validation dataset (3,606 samples). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was implemented to compare clinical characteristics of individuals with various degrees of genetic risk. Gene ontology and pathway enrichment analysis was done using the DAVID functional annotation tool, the GO Tree Machine, and the Pathway-Express profiling tool.

Results

In the discovery dataset, the median cumulative genetic risk (P-Hat) was 0.903 and 0.007 in the case and control groups, respectively, together with 79.9% classification sensitivity and 95.8% specificity. The identified profile shows a significant enrichment of genes involved in the immune response, cell adhesion, cell communication/signaling, nervous system development, and neuronal signaling, including ionotropic glutamate receptors, which have been implicated in the pathological mechanism driving neurodegeneration. In the validation dataset, the median cumulative genetic risk was 0.59 and 0.32 in the case and control groups, respectively, with classification sensitivity 62.3% and specificity 75.9%. No differences in disease progression or T2-lesion volumes were observed among four levels of predicted genetic risk groups (high, medium, low, misclassified). On the other hand, a significant difference (F = 2.75, P = 0.04) was detected for age of disease onset between the affected misclassified as controls (mean = 36 years) and the other three groups (high, 33.5 years; medium, 33.4 years; low, 33.1 years).

Conclusions

The results are consistent with the polygenic model of inheritance. The cumulative genetic risk established using currently available genome-wide association data provides important insights into disease heterogeneity and completeness of current knowledge in MS genetics.

Partial epilepsies have a substantial heritability. However, the actual genetic causes are largely unknown. In contrast to many other common diseases for which genetic association-studies have successfully revealed common variants associated with disease risk, the role of common variation in partial epilepsies has not yet been explored in a well-powered study. We undertook a genome-wide association-study to identify common variants which influence risk for epilepsy shared amongst partial epilepsy syndromes, in 3445 patients and 6935 controls of European ancestry. We did not identify any genome-wide significant association. A few single nucleotide polymorphisms may warrant further investigation. We exclude common genetic variants with effect sizes above a modest 1.3 odds ratio for a single variant as contributors to genetic susceptibility shared across the partial epilepsies. We show that, at best, common genetic variation can only have a modest role in predisposition to the partial epilepsies when considered across syndromes in Europeans. The genetic architecture of the partial epilepsies is likely to be very complex, reflecting genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Larger meta-analyses are required to identify variants of smaller effect sizes (odds ratio <1.3) or syndrome-specific variants. Further, our results suggest research efforts should also be directed towards identifying the multiple rare variants likely to account for at least part of the heritability of the partial epilepsies. Data emerging from genome-wide association-studies will be valuable during the next serious challenge of interpreting all the genetic variation emerging from whole-genome sequencing studies.

We report the results of a meta-analysis of genome-wide association scans for multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility that includes 2,624 subjects with MS and 7,220 control subjects. Replication in an independent set of 2,215 subjects with MS and 2,116 control subjects validates new MS susceptibility loci at TNFRSF1A (combined P = 1.59 × 10−11), IRF8 (P = 3.73 × 10−9) and CD6 (P = 3.79 × 10−9). TNFRSF1A harbors two independent susceptibility alleles: rs1800693 is a common variant with modest effect (odds ratio = 1.2), whereas rs4149584 is a nonsynonymous coding polymorphism of low frequency but with stronger effect (allele frequency = 0.02; odds ratio = 1.6). We also report that the susceptibility allele near IRF8, which encodes a transcription factor known to function in type I interferon signaling, is associated with higher mRNA expression of interferon-response pathway genes in subjects with MS.

To achieve greater understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying nicotine craving in female smokers, we examined the influence of nicotine non-abstinence vs. acute nicotine abstinence on cue-elicited activation of the ventral striatum. Eight female smokers underwent an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm presenting randomized sequences of smoking-related and non-smoking related pictures. Participants were asked to indicate by a key press the gender of individuals in smoking-related and non-smoking related pictures (gender discrimination task), to maintain and evaluate attention to the pictures. There was a significant effect of smoking condition on reaction times (RT) for a gender discrimination task intended to assess and maintain attention to the photographs—suggesting a deprivation effect of acute nicotine abstinence and a statistical trend indicating greater RTs for smoking cues than neutral cues. BOLD contrast (smoking vs. non-smoking cues) was greater in the non-abstinent vs. acutely abstinent conditions in the ventral striatum including the nucleus accumbens (VS/NAc). Moreover, a significant positive correlation was observed between baseline cigarette craving prior to scanning and VS/NAc activation (r=0.84, p=0.009), but only in the non-abstinent condition. These results may either be explained by ceiling effects of nicotine withdrawal in the abstinent condition or, may indicate reduced relative activation (smoking vs. neutral contrast) in the VS/NAc in the abstinent vs. non-abstinent conditions in this group of female smokers.