Review
Role of cigarette sensory cues in modifying puffing topography

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.01.012Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

Human puffing topography promotes tobacco dependence by ensuring nicotine delivery, but the factors that determine puffing behavior are not well explained by existing models. Chemosensory cues generated by variations in cigarette product design features may serve as conditioned cues to allow the smoker to optimize nicotine delivery by adjusting puffing topography. Internal tobacco industry research documents were reviewed to understand the influence of sensory cues on puffing topography, and to examine how the tobacco industry has designed cigarettes, including modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs), to enhance puffing behavior to optimize nicotine delivery and product acceptability.

Methods

Relevant internal tobacco industry documents were identified using systematic searching with key search terms and phrases, and then snowball sampling method was applied to establish further search terms.

Results

Modern cigarettes are designed by cigarette manufacturers to provide sensory characteristics that not only maintain appeal, but provide cues which inform puffing intensity. Alterations in the chemosensory cues provided in tobacco smoke play an important role in modifying smoking behavior independently of the central effects of nicotine.

Conclusions

An associative learning model is proposed to explain the influence of chemosensory cues on variation in puffing topography. These cues are delivered via tobacco smoke and are moderated by design features and additives used in cigarettes. The implications for regulation of design features of modified risk tobacco products, which may act to promote intensive puffing while lowering risk perceptions, are discussed.

Introduction

Cigarette puffing is a complex behavior which ensures delivery of nicotine to the smoker, thus promoting tobacco dependence. Puffing topography refers to an individual's per-cigarette puffing profile which consists of number of puffs, puff volume, puff duration, puff velocity, and inter-puff interval (Marian et al., 2009). Together, puffing topography and other smoking behaviors (including the number and timing of cigarettes smoked per day, the length of cigarette smoked, and blocking of ventilation holes) influence nicotine dosing as well as exposure toxic cigarette smoke constituents: more intensive puffing can increase per volume yields of smoke constituents as well as produce a greater volume of smoke (e.g., Benowitz, 2001, Djordjevic et al., 2000, Hammond et al., 2005, Strasser et al., 2006, Strasser et al., 2007). Smokers modify their puffing topography to influence nicotine delivery, thus optimizing nicotine plasma levels and nicotine reward (e.g., Griffiths and Henningfield, 1982, Hasenfratz et al., 1993, Herning et al., 1985, Scherer, 1999). Indeed, puffing topography varies through the course of a cigarette, by time of day, and according to individual physiological differences or needs (Collins et al., 2010, Gust et al., 1983, Guyatt et al., 1989, Kolonen et al., 1992). Cigarette design features also influence puffing topography. For example, cigarettes designed to produce low tar or nicotine yields, which tend to have high filter ventilation, promote intensive “compensatory” smoking (Benowitz, 2001, Hammond et al., 2006, Kozlowski and O’Connor, 2002, Scherer, 1999, Strasser et al., 2007). However, it is not known whether other cigarette design features, including additives that alter chemosensory perceptions, also influence smoking behavior.

While smoking behavior has long been assumed to be regulated by circulating blood nicotine levels, other factors besides nicotine may contribute to puffing topography. A widely accepted model of smoking behavior, the nicotine titration model, proposes that smoking behavior must be modified to ensure delivery of a sufficient dose of nicotine on a puff by puff basis to provide the pharmacologically derived satisfaction and reinforcement desired by the smoker, and it must also be capable of providing sufficient total dosing to enable the smoker to maintain dependence and avoid withdrawal symptoms (Jaffe, 1990). Implicit in the nicotine titration model is the role of interoceptive feedback provided by changing plasma nicotine levels. In this model, puffing topography may be seen as a motivational response to the need to maintain nicotine reward and/or avoid withdrawal. However, nicotine may not reach the brain for some 10–20 s after a puff is completed, and peak nicotine levels may not occur until after smoking is complete (Benowitz et al., 2009), and therefore CNS nicotine effects cannot provide cues to guide a smoker's puff-by-puff behavior. This may require consideration of an alternative mechanism to explain variations in individual puffing behavior.

A growing body of evidence has suggested that sensory stimuli associated with smoking play a role in modulation of smoking behavior, independent of the central effects of nicotine. Rose and co-workers have suggested that so-called non-nicotine effects, which provide both sensory stimulation and other pharmacological influences, may directly or indirectly reinforce smoking behavior (Rose, 2006). Sensory factors have been shown to influence smoking satisfaction in highly dependent smokers, based upon more positive ratings of de-nicotinized cigarettes by smokers with greater tobacco dependence (Rose et al., 2000, Rose et al., 1993a, Rose et al., 1993b). These findings highlight the influence of sensory cues in the determination of smoking satisfaction (Rose and Behm, 2004), psychological reward (Brauer et al., 2001), and craving reduction (Levin et al., 1993). Smoker perceptions of a “lighter” feel and taste of the smoke from highly ventilated cigarettes may also be an important factor in the higher acceptability of those products (Borland et al., 2004, Kozlowski and O’Connor, 2002, Shiffman et al., 2001).

Theories of addictive behavior that employ principles of associative learning describe an important role for the sensory cues that are contiguous with drug administration and reward (West, 2006). Cues or conditioned stimuli (CSs) that are repeatedly paired with nicotine's unconditioned stimulus (UCS) effects can acquire “incentive salience,” a motivationally significant state that may influence smoking-related behaviors (e.g., Robinson and Berridge, 2003). A broad literature on smoking cue reactivity has shown that external smoking cues (such as visual representations of smoking paraphernalia) produce conditioned responses (CRs) including smoking-related urges and behaviors (Sayette et al., 2010).

The influence of cigarette product design on smoking behaviors has been extensively investigated by the tobacco industry, and a broad base of research is available for analysis (Wayne and Connolly, 2009). Design modifications which produce specific sensory characteristics are used by manufacturers to establish brand and sub brand identity and enhance product consumer appeal (Carpenter et al., 2007). This study will review evidence obtained from previously secret, but now publicly available, internal tobacco industry documents to understand: (i) the influence of sensory cues on puffing topography, and (ii) how tobacco manufacturers manipulate puffing topography by modifying tobacco product design and emissions. A final aim is to: (iii) examine tobacco industry strategies to design new consumer acceptable tobacco products, including modified risk tobacco products (MRTPs), using design features which alter sensory characteristics and thus puffing topography.

Section snippets

Methods

A snowball sampling method was used to conduct web-based, full text searches of the current collection of millions of internal tobacco company business records made publicly available through state litigation and the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. The databases used in this study were the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (www.legacy.library.ucsf.edu) and Tobacco Documents Online (www.tobaccodocuments.org).

A set of relevant documents was identified by expanding initial searches of general

Effects of sensory cues on topography

Multiple factors associated with variations in puffing topography were identified by tobacco industry scientists, with special attention paid to the influence of various product design features on sensory responses of nerves of the head, neck and lung. In 1994, BAT scientists “emphasized the point that perceived sensory responses cannot simply be related to smoke deliveries obtained under standard machine smoked conditions” (British American Tobacco, 1994). A 2003 tobacco industry report

Discussion

Data from internal tobacco industry research show that puffing topography is influenced by sensory cues associated with nicotine delivery. Tobacco industry scientists have identified relationships between product design characteristics, chemosensory effects, and puffing topography. Chemosensory cues derived from smoking, such as harshness, impact, taste, and mouthfeel, provide cues for nicotine delivery, and play a role in determining puffing behavior. This may occur as sensory stimuli that

Role of funding source

This work was funded by National Cancer Institute contract N01-PC-64402 and grant RO1-CA1-25224. The National Cancer Institute collaborated with the authors in study planning and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. All other aspects of this research, including data collection and manuscript preparation, were conducted independently.

Contributors

Authors Rees and Kreslake conceived the study, conducted document searches and manuscript preparation. Ferris Wayne conducted document searches and manuscript preparation. O’Connor, Cummings and Connolly contributed to refinement of aims and manuscript preparation. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest

KMC has served in the past and continues to serve as a paid expert witness for plaintiffs in litigation against the tobacco industry. No other financial disclosures or conflicts of interest were reported by the authors of this paper.

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