Nicotine Withdrawal and Reward Processing

This study is designed to find out how smoking affects the way the brain responds to pleasure and how this impacts smokers' behavior. Participants will complete five sessions. The first session will be a screening visit to determine final eligibility. Participants who appear eligible based on this screening will work with a researcher to develop brief scripts about times when they smoke and do other activities. Next, participants will attend two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. They will smoke two study cigarettes at each of these visits - these cigarettes are like regular cigarettes you might buy at the store, but have different amounts of nicotine in them. After smoking, participants will be placed in an MRI scanner to complete some tasks. After the second MRI, participants will be given a one-week supply of study cigarettes and will be asked to smoke only those over the next week. They will also answer some questions on their phone every day during this period. Afterwards, they will return to the lab, provide a urine sample and complete some tasks, than get another one-week supply of a different type of study cigarette and repeat the process.