Evidence suggests that nicotine and alcohol can each serve as a gateway drug. We determined whether prior treatment would alter amphetamine reward. Also, we examined age dopaminergic neurotransmission are important in this regard. Male female adolescent adult C57BL/6J mice were tested for baseline place preference. Mice then received six conditioning with saline/nicotine (0.25 mg/kg) twice dail...

BACKGROUND Lung cancer rates are lower in Asians and Latinos than in whites. Ethnic differences in nicotine metabolism might explain, in part, ethnic differences in cigarette consumption and/or nicotine intake per cigarette and resultant tobacco-related cancer risk. We compared the rate of nicotine metabolism and the intake of nicotine per cigarette smoked among smokers of different ethnicities...

introduction: morphine addiction and morphine withdrawal syndrome are the two main problems of today’s human society. the present study has investigated the effects of nicotine on the strength of physical and psychological dependency in single and repeated doses morphine administrated rats. methods: male wistar rats were subjected to morphine consumption with single or frequent dose protocols. ...

The effects of chronic gestational exposure to nicotine on the nucleus accumbens dopamine response to acute nicotine were determined during adolescence (postnatal day 29-36) in cross-fostered and noncross-fostered Lewis rats. In both males and females, gestational nicotine exposure diminished the adolescent nucleus accumbens dopamine response to 0.07 mg/kg nicotine i.v. (p < 0.05). However, dop...

Two of the biggest health problems facing us today are addiction to nicotine and the increased prevalence of obesity. Interestingly, nicotine attenuates obesity, but the underlying mechanism is not clear. Here we address the hypothesis that if weight-reducing actions of nicotine are mediated by anorexigenic proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons of the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus, nicotine should ...

Nicotine is a primary constituent of tobacco and smoke, and its roles in causing addiction and causing disease are commonly conflated. In the present work, we investigated whether nicotine protects smokers' platelets against smoke-induced activation in vivo, raising a possible dilemma in harm-reduction strategies. In vivo platelet activation state (PAS) was measured by fixing blood at drawing a...

Concentrations of nicotine, cotinine, and nornicotine in brain and blood following both intermittent and continuous administration of [2'-(14)C]nicotine to rats were determined to assess nicotine metabolite accumulation in brain following repeated nicotine administration. For intermittent studies, rats were administered s.c. 1 to 10 doses of nicotine (0.3 mg/kg, 15 or 25 microCi of [2'-(14)C]ni...

Smokers have substantial individual differences in quit success in response to current treatments for nicotine dependence. This observation may suggest that different underlying motivations for continued tobacco use across individuals and nicotine cessation may require different treatments in different individuals. Although most animal models of nicotine dependence emphasize the positive reinfo...

Evaluation of the discriminative stimulus effects of drugs is a useful procedure for identification of receptor mediation of in vivo drug effects. This assay can be enhanced when the stimulus effects of different doses of agonist are evaluated. In the present study, rats were trained to discriminate small or large doses of nicotine from saline, and interactions of these effects with nicotinic r...

An 11-week crossover study was carried out in which 12 subjects smoked high-nicotine (1.84 mg standard yield) and low-nicotine (0.6 mg) cigarettes after an initial period of smoking their usual brands with a medium-nicotine yield (mean 1.4 mg). Plasma and urine nicotine concentrations, carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb) concentration, puffing behaviour, 24-hour cigarette consumption, and butt nicotine c...