Positive and Negative Affect Study

It is widely assumed that comorbidity between cigarette smoking and depression arises because nicotine has antidepressant effects. However, there is surprisingly little evidence that such effects occur, and almost no research examining nicotine’s effects in depressed people. Depressed people have also largely been excluded from investigations of antidepressant effects on smoking cessation.  Efforts to understand nicotine’s comorbidity with depression have focused almost exclusively on dysphoria. Largely omitted from study have been nicotine’s effects on positive affect deficiencies that are even more fundamental to depression. The aim of this research is to characterize nicotine’s effects on both positive and negative affect, and to determine how those effects may be moderated by both a prior history of major depressive disorder as well as by the presence of a current depressive episode.  

Interested in participating in this study?  Click here.