Posted by SLS on January 19, 2009, at 19:28:10
In reply to Re: Nicotine increases GAD67 levels in schizophrenia, posted by SLS on January 19, 2009, at 19:02:46
> Nicotine is not addictive in the same way as are cocaine or amphetamines. That makes it no less addictive. Mice can be Pavlovian conditioned to anticipate nicotine administration and demonstrate hyperactivity in between doses, especially when it is withheld. Mice also demonstrate conditioned place-preference with nicotine. Self-administration is therefore not the right paradigm to assay nicotine addiction.
When nicotine is administered IV, things change:
"Further, self-administration studies with rats consistently report that IV nicotine maintains instrumental responding over a range of doses (e.g., Corrigall & Coen 1989; DeNoble & Mele 2006; Donny et al. 1995; Rauhut et al. 2003; Shoaib et al. 1996) indicating that IV nicotine has some reinforcing properties."
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2248701
I think Linkadge makes a valuable observation that nicotine is significantly different from most other drugs of abuse (I believe cannabis is another exception). I don't know for sure that someone can become addicted to nicotine replacement products if they were nicotine-naive. I never looked into it.
I think any definition of addiction must include the presence of cravings. People don't crave Zyprexa or Effexor.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:874824
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/875031.html