ORIGINAL RESEARCH 12-h abstinence-induced functional connectivity density changes and craving in young smokers: a resting-state study Shuzhi Zhao 1,2 & Yangding Li 1,2 & Min Li 3,4 & Ruonan Wang 3,4 & Yanzhi Bi 3,4 & Yajuan Zhang 3,4 & Xiaoqi Lu 5 & Dahua Yu 5 & Likun Yang 6 & Kai Yuan 1,2,3,4,5 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Studying the neural correlates of craving to smoke is of great importance to improve treatment outcomes in smoking addiction. According to previous studies, the critical roles of striatum and frontal brain regions had been revealed in addiction. However, few studies focused on the hub of brain regions in the 12 h abstinence induced craving in young smokers. Thirty-one young male smokers were enrolled in the present study. A within-subject experiment design was carried out to compare functional connectivity density between 12-h smoking abstinence and smoking satiety conditions during resting state in young adult smokers by using functional connectivity density mapping (FCDM). Then, the functional connectivity density changes during smoking abstinence versus satiety were further used to examine correlations with abstinence-induced changes in subjective craving. We found young adult smokers in abstinence state (vs satiety) had higher local functional connectivity density (lFCD) and global functional connectivity density (gFCD) in brain regions including striatal subregions (i.e., bilateral caudate and putamen), frontal regions (i.e., anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and orbital frontal cortex (OFC)) and bilateral insula. We also found higher lFCD during smoking abstinence (vs satiety) in bilateral thalamus. Additionally, the lFCD changes of the left ACC, bilateral caudate and right OFC were positively correlated with the changes in craving induced by abstinence (i.e., abstinence minus satiety) in young adult smokers. The present findings improve the under- standing of the effects of acute smoking abstinence on the hubs of brain gray matter in the abstinence-induces craving and may contribute new insights into the neural mechanism of abstinence-induced craving in young smokers in smoking addiction. Keywords Resting state . Functional connectivity density mapping (FCDM) . Abstinence-induced craving . Young adult smokers Introduction Cigarette smoking is a global public health problem (Bloomfield et al. 2014), and it is the most common preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world (Naqvi et al. 2007). In a recent Word Health Organization (WHO) report, smoking abstinence can slow down the progress of the disease in smokers and decrease chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-related deaths (http://www.who.int/en/). Although being aware of the negative outcomes of smoking, Shuzhi Zhao and Yangding Li contributed equally to this work. * Yangding Li lyd271@126.com * Likun Yang beck_yang@163.com * Kai Yuan kyuan@xidian.edu.cn 1 College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, Guangxi 541004, People’ s Republic of China 2 Guangxi Key Lab of Multi-Source Information Mining and Security, Guilin, Guangxi 541004, People’ s Republic of China 3 School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710071, People’ s Republic of China 4 Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging, Ministry of Education, Xi’an, People’ s Republic of China 5 Information Processing Laboratory, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, People’ s Republic of China 6 Department of Neurosurgery, No 101 Hospital of Chinese PLA, Wuxi, People’ s Republic of China Brain Imaging and Behavior https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-018-9911-3