2020-Present
Randomized Control Trial of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback for Smoking Cessation
The present investigation is a randomized control trial of a heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback smoking cessation treatment (HRVB-SCT) on smokers with moderate levels of anxiety and/or depression. The goal of the study is to test HRV biofeedback as a treatment adjunct for smoking cessation.
COVID-19 and Perceptions on Health, Wellbeing, and Daily Living
As we are currently facing the COVID-19 pandemic, we seek to research, in real-time, the effects of this outbreak on students at Rutgers University and individuals with primary residence in New Jersey. The purpose of this study is to examine the possible effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on health behaviors and psychological stress of participants, as well as to attempt to pinpoint factors that may correlate with those effects (e.g. history of emotional distress). Specifically, we seek to investigate factors that may influence individual likelihood to have fear or concerns regarding this virus, how these concerns manifest into emotions or actions (including social isolation behaviors), and their impact on overall wellbeing.
Puff Topography Biofeedback on Smoking Reinforcement
There is clear evidence of health-disparity in the maintenance of smoking, such that smokers with emotional distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms/disorders) are more vulnerable to the reinforcing value of cigarettes (i.e., smoking reinforcement) and are less successful in quitting smoking. A novel biomarker in the emotional distress-smoking link is reinforcer pathology - degree to which a drug reinforcer produces a reliable, instant, and intense rewarding effect. Emotional distress heightens vulnerability for nicotine-modulated dysfunction in both emotional and reward processing, which in turn, enhances the value of cigarettes particularly in response to distress. The reinforcing value of cigarette use is largely attributed to the ease and flexibility in which smokers can self-regulate drug administration by tailoring not only when they smoke, but how they smoke (i.e., “puff topography”). Puff topography affords precision in evaluating temporal components that drive reinforcer pathology: including reward immediacy (e.g., larger/shorter initial puffs), intensity (e.g., larger puff volume, velocity), and persistence (e.g., sustained puffing over cigarette). Indeed, smokers with emotional distress demonstrate larger initial puff volumes and sustained puffing over the course of a cigarette, and change (compensate) how they smoke in response to distress. Taken together, we propose that augmenting puff topography is an ideal precision medicine approach for decreasing smoking reinforcement in smokers with emotional distress. We propose to develop and test a puff topography biofeedback paradigm to attenuate reinforcer pathology in emotionally distressed smokers. Biofeedback involves providing smokers with real time feedback regarding puffing (when to inhale, the breath duration, exhale, and inter-puff interval), informed by physiological mechanisms that control self-regulation and stress reactivity. Specifically, this study is an experimental, between-subjects test of biofeedback puff topography training (relative to sham training) in reducing stress-induced smoking reinforcement.