The Effects of Acute Nicotine, Chronic Nicotine, and Withdrawal From Chronic Nicotine on Performance of a Cued Appetitive Response.
The effects of acute nicotine, chronic nicotine, and withdrawal from chronic nicotine on performance of a cued appetitive response.
Behav Neurosci. 2013 Apr; 127(2): 303-10
Leach PT, Cordero KA, Gould TJ
Nicotine is a widely used addictive drug, with an estimated 73 million Americans 12 years of age or older having used a tobacco product in the last month, despite documented risks to personal health. Nicotine alters cognitive processes, which include effects on attention and impulsivity, a mechanism that may contribute to the addictive properties of the drug. Individuals with a variety of psychological disorders ranging from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to schizophrenia smoke at a higher rate than the rest of the population and show deficits in impulse control. The present studies evaluated the effects of acute, chronic, and withdrawal from chronic nicotine on an operant task that measured premature and signaled nose pokes, as well as performance efficiency in C57BL/6J mice. Results indicate that acute nicotine (0.09 mg/kg intraperitoneally) does not alter the acquisition of the task, but does significantly increase performance efficiency once the behavior has been learned. In contrast, chronic nicotine (0, 6.3, 12.6, and 36 mg/kg/day subcutaneously) and withdrawal from chronic nicotine had no effect on performance efficiency. These results suggest that initial nicotine use may have beneficial effects on inhibitory control, but these effects are not maintained with chronic nicotine consumption as tolerance develops. The findings may provide an explanation for higher rates of smoking in patients with impulse control issues, as the smoking may represent an initial attempt at self-medication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). HubMed – addiction
Uncertainty about mapping future actions into rewards may underlie performance on multiple measures of impulsivity in behavioral addiction: Evidence from Parkinson’s disease.
Behav Neurosci. 2013 Apr; 127(2): 245-55
Averbeck BB, Djamshidian A, O’Sullivan SS, Housden CR, Roiser JP, Lees AJ
A subset of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) develops behavioral addictions, which may be due to their dopamine replacement therapy. Recently, several groups have been comparing PD patients with and without behavioral addictions on tasks that are thought to measure aspects of impulsivity. Several of these experiments, including information sampling, a bias toward novel stimuli and temporal discounting, have shown differences between PD patients with and without behavioral addictions. We have developed a unifying theoretical framework that allows us to model behavior in all three of these tasks. By exploring the performance of the patient groups on the three tasks with a single framework, we can ask questions about common mechanisms that underlie all three. Our results suggest that the effects seen in all three tasks can be accounted for by uncertainty about the ability to map future actions into rewards. More specifically, the modeling is consistent with the hypothesis that the group with behavioral addictions behaves as if they cannot use information provided within the experimental context to improve future reward guided actions. Future studies will be necessary to more firmly establish (or refute) this hypothesis. We discuss this result in light of what is known about the pathology that underlies the behavioral addictions in the PD patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). HubMed – addiction
Advice alone versus structured detoxification programmes for complicated medication overuse headache (MOH): a prospective, randomized, open-label trial.
J Headache Pain. 2013; 14(1): 10
Rossi P, Faroni JV, Tassorelli C, Nappi G
The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of an educational strategy (advice to withdraw the overused medication/s) with that of two structured pharmacological detoxification programmes in patients with complicated medication overuse headache (MOH) plus migraine.One hundred and thirty-seven complicated MOH patients participated in the study. MOH was defined as complicated in patients presenting at least one of the following: a) a diagnosis of co-existent and complicating medical illnesses; b) a current diagnosis of mood disorder, anxiety disorder, eating disorder, or substance addiction disorder; c) relapse after previous detoxification treatment; d) social and environmental problems; e) daily use of multiple doses of symptomatic medications. Group A (46 patients) received only intensive advice to withdraw the overused medication/s. Group B (46 patients) underwent a standard detoxification programme as outpatients (advice?+?steroids?+?preventive treatment). Group C (45 patients) underwent a standard inpatient withdrawal programme (advice?+?steroids?+?fluid replacement and antiemetics preventive treatment). Withdrawal therapy was considered successful if, after two months, the patient had reverted to an intake of NSAIDs lower than 15 days/month or to an intake of other symptomatic medication/s lower than 10 days/month.Twenty-two patients failed to attend follow-up visits (11 in Group A, 9 in Group B, 2 in Group C, p?HubMed – addiction
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