Nicotine addiction: Behavioural and brain mechanisms from rodents to humans

Who we are Our Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement (ICE) Team comprises three Principal Investigators. Paul Clarke is a neuropsychopharmacologist based in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University. He has a long-standing interest in nicotine's actions in the brain, and combines behavioural and neurochemical approaches to address questions related to nicotine's rewarding effects in rats. His work on nicotine-dopamine interactions contributed to the idea that nicotine serves as a reinforcer by increasing dopaminergic transmission. Derek Van der Kooy is a behavioural neuroscientist and CIHR Distinguished Scientist in the Department of Medical Genetic and Microbiology, University of Toronto. He has long been interested in brain mechanisms underlying addiction and learning. He has recently shown that two independent brain systems mediate reinforcing effects of nicotine, heroin alcohol and food. His recent research suggests the radical notion that that DA may mediate the aversive effects of nicotine. Alain Dagher is a neurologist based at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He uses PET and fMRI brain imaging techniques to study tobacco and other addictions in human subjects. He has developed a new method to measure the release of DA by neurons in the living human brain. His studies have revealed that alcohol, amphetamine, food and money can induce DA release in the nucleus accumbens. Alain Dagher is also interested in the interplay between personality and drugs.

Links:

Paul Clarke http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/pharma/displaypharma.asp?Pharma_ID=9

Alain Dagher http://www2.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/research/people/faculty/profile_aladag000

Derek van der Kooy http://www.utoronto.ca/nbrg/

Research Although habitual cigarette smoking is a complex behaviour modulated by many factors (e.g. genes, personality, economics), nicotine is the only factor that is known to be necessary. Hence, one might expect that the most effective smoking cessation strategies would be based on pharmacological intervention. However, current pharmacological aids (e.g. nicotine replacement therapy, buproprion) tend to be no more effective than the best psychosocial approaches. Several new types of drug treatment are in clinical development, but it is uncertain whether they will be effective and safe. We believe that more effective treatments will likely require a deeper understanding of the behavioural and brain mechanisms contributing to nicotine addiction. As a team, our main goals are as follows:

Elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying nicotine's addictive effects.
Search for innovative approaches to smoking cessation, by closely integrating animal and human experiments and by developing novel models of nicotine dependence.
Determine biological and psychological factors that lead to vulnerability to nicotine addiction.
Explore relationships between nicotine dependence and other addictions.