Document Type
Article
Abstract
Objective Countries around the world have increasingly adopted pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) for tobacco packages to warn consumers about smoking-related risks. Research on how pictorial HWLs work has primarily analysed self-reported responses to HWLs; studies at the neural level comparing the brain's response to different types of HWLs may provide an important complement to prior studies, especially if self-reported responses are systematically biased. In this study we characterise the brain's response to three types of pictorial HWLs for which prior self-report studies indicated different levels of efficacy.
Methods Current smokers rated pictorial HWLs and then observed the same HWLs during functional MRI (fMRI) scanning. Fifty 18–50-year-old current adult smokers who were free from neurological disorders were recruited from the general population and participated in the study. Demographics, smoking-related behaviours and self-reported ratings of pictorial HWL stimuli were obtained prior to scanning. Brain responses to HWLs were assessed using fMRI, focusing on a priori regions of interest.
Results Pictorial HWL stimuli elicited activation in a broad network of brain areas associated with visual processing and emotion. Participants who rated the stimuli as more emotionally arousing also showed greater neural responses at these sites.
Conclusions Self-reported ratings of pictorial HWLs are correlated with neural responses in brain areas associated with visual and emotional processing. Study results cross-validate self-reported ratings of pictorial HWLs and provide insights into how pictorial HWLs are processed.
Publication Info
Published in BMJ Open, Volume 4, Issue 12, 2014, pages 1-12.
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Newman-Norlund, R., Thrasher, J., Fridriksson, J., Brixius, W., Froeliger, B., Hammond, D., & Cummings, M. (2014).Neural Biomarkers for Assessing Different Types of Imagery in Pictorial Health Warning Labels for Cigarette Packaging: A Cross-Sectional Study. BMJ Open, 4(12), e006411. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006411
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Newman-Norlund, R., Thrasher, J., Fridriksson, J., Brixius, W., Froeliger, B., Hammond, D., & Cummings, M. (2014).Neural Biomarkers for Assessing Different Types of Imagery in Pictorial Health Warning Labels for Cigarette Packaging: A Cross-Sectional Study. BMJ Open, 4(12), e006411. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006411