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Research Interests

My primary area of research interest is addictive behavior, with a specific focus on cigarette smoking.  The overarching goal of my research program is to advance our understanding of the self-regulatory failures characteristic of drug addiction.  I utilize an interdisciplinary approach that integrates theory and methods from traditional behavioral addiction research with those derived from the affective, cognitive and social neurosciences (e.g., functional brain imaging).  One of the principal methodological tools that I employ is the cue-reactivity paradigm, which involves exposing drug-addicted individuals to drug-related stimuli (i.e., drug cues) while assessing concomitant changes in one or more response systems.  Cue-elicited changes in cognition and affect appear to play a critical role in relapse to drug use, a link that has been particularly well-established for cigarette smoking.  The cue-reactivity paradigm is thus a useful and clinically informative laboratory procedure for studying self-regulation and addiction.

Theoretically, my work is guided by contemporary neuroscientific models of executive/cognitive control and emotion regulation.  These perspectives provide a novel framework for elucidating the mechanisms whereby exposure to drug cues leads to failures of self-regulation.  My colleagues and I have used this approach to investigate the context-dependent nature of cue-elicited responses, with a particular interest in identifying the conditions under which exposure to drug cues places demands upon the resources supporting executive functioning and the regulation of emotion.  My current work is directed at examining how the engagement of such resources affects the performance of tasks requiring cognitive control, as well as how such effects vary as a function of individual differences in cognitive ability and the nature of the task being performed.

Recent Publications

Wilson, S.J., Sayette, M.A., & Fiez, J.A. (2004). Prefrontal responses to drug cues: A neurocognitive analysis. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 211-214.

Wilson, S.J., Sayette, M.A., Delgado, M.R., & Fiez, J.A. (2005). Instructed smoking expectancy modulates cue-elicited neural activity: A preliminary study. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 7, 637-645.

Wilson, S.J., Sayette, M.A., Fiez, J.A., & Brough, E. (2007). Carry-over effects of smoking cue exposure on working memory performance. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 9, 613-619.

Wilson, S.J., Sayette, M.A., Fiez, J.A., & Delgado, M.R. (2008). Effects of smoking opportunity on responses to monetary gain and loss in the caudate nucleus. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 428-434.