Research demonstrates the role of nicotine in smoking

Tobacco addiction is the leading cause of death in Canada. Although most smokers desire to be able to give it up, only a few are successful.

A new study by the Center for Detox and Mental Health CAMH, Canada and the National Institutes of Health NIH, USA found high use of nicotine in primates.

(Photo: finalsmoke) Although research proves that smoking is highly addictive in humans, it still persists in the role of nicotine in promoting smoking. This is the first study to evaluate the boosting effect of nicotine through experiments with silly monkeys. This study was conducted at NIH under the direction of Professor Bernard Le Foll, CAMH scientist and the director of the addiction research laboratory and an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

Professor Le Foll said research results show that nicotine plays an important role in maintaining smoking behavior.

While there are many reasons for smoking, this study complements previous studies on the discovery of biological causes of tobacco addiction, to conduct a review of nicotine's impulse effects. . Dr. Le Foll and his colleague Dr. Steven R Goldberg (NIH) conducted experiments to use nicotine on silly squirrel monkeys.

In this experiment, animals can self-supply nicotine by pressing a handheld device. Taking nicotine together with special environmental cues mimics the state with cigarette smoke in humans. While the original animals showed no great fondness for a handheld device, after a while there was intense interest in the device. And the animals were pushed to press the device up to 600 times to load each episode of nicotine injections.

This clearly shows that the high impulse for nicotine intake increases gradually over time.

This experimental animal mimics almost the human condition, promising promise for developing new treatments for drug addiction.

Professor Lefoll added that the importance of nicotine in smoking helps support the use of nicotine replacement therapy or varenicline.

Anh Phuong