Testing the efficacy of real-time fMRI neurofeedback for training people who smoke daily to upregulate neural responses to nondrug rewards

This proof-of-concept study examined whether the ability to upregulate responses in reward-related brain areas was augmented by real-time functional MRI neurofeedback training, as compared with no feedback; the study included 44 adults who smoked >5 cigarettes per day, with patients equally allocated to the intervention or control group. As part of the study, baseline smoking status was confirmed using the Vitalograph BreathCO device.