Nicotine Dependence

In the United States, smoking cigarettes is the number one preventable cause of morbidity and death (Bergen, 1999), and accounts for $300 Billion in health care costs and economic productivity loss (Jamal, 2015). While the national smoking rate is 16.8% (CDC, 2016), specific demographics are more susceptible to developing smoking habits: people who live below the poverty line (10.9% higher), disabled or with a limitation (6.2% higher), and males (4.7% higher) (Agaku, 2014).

“In 2009, 8.2% of middle school students and 23.9% of high school students reported current use of any tobacco product, and 5.2% of middle school students and 17.2% of high school students reported current use of cigarettes” (CDC, Tobacco Use, Para. 5). Tobacco products are always going to be accessible to the kids of the nation. But e-cigs are still only for men and women above the age of 18, and I.D. is required to purchase anything related to the products. I questioned 50 people who use e-cigs or e-cig products if they ever felt the desire to smoke a regular cigarette since they began using a vape. Out of 50, 36 said that they have never felt the desire to smoke a cigarette, and they didn’t get any nicotine in the juice they used. 10 of the 50 stated that they would rather use their vape, but sometimes they crave a cigarette. The other 4 said that they would rather have a cigarette but are quitting. Some even stated that they use their vape as an excuse to not smoke. They don’t feel as pressured to smoke whenever they are able to use the e-cigs around smokers. Most people who have smoked their entire lives and decided to quit and start vaping usually start out at a high level of nicotine then slowly work their way down to lower levels. “We followed 477 users of electronic cigarettes during one month and 367 users over one year. 22% had stopped smoking after one month and 46% after one year.

So, it is perfectly rational to call smoking an “addiction” in my policy above. The main topic of 1988 US Surgeon General’s Report was if tobacco was addictive. It stated three main conclusions. First, it said that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive. Second, it stated that the reason they are addictive is because of the nicotine found in them. Thirdly, it stated that this addictiveness is much like heroin or cocaine. Prior to this report and since then there have been other studies and experiments stating the addictiveness of tobacco and the effects of nicotine on the body. It is known that nicotine increases the levels of dopamine in the brain and causes a burst of adrenaline. This burst of adrenaline is pleasurable and is what is known as the “rush” or “kick” from smoking. DeNoble and Mele figured out that rats would rather have nicotine than food and water once they were addicted. Phillip Morris stopped them from publishing their findings in 1983. In 1995, Stoleman and Jarvis did a study on nicotine’s addictiveness and found that there are many different withdrawal symptoms people go through when they are deprived of nicotine. They also found that this withdrawal is only relieved by a nicotine and not a smoking placebo. This again furthers the fact that smoking is addictive. Once a person starts smoking it quickly becomes an

Overtime the tolerance is accompanied by increased intake of nicotine to achieve the same effects that was initially taken to physical dependence and compelling higher intake leading to withdrawal symptom. The reinforcement mechanisms leads to addiction. Schwartz (2010) explains, "In the time between smoking cigarettes, or after quitting tobacco use, brain nicotine levels decline, which leads to reduced levels of dopamine and other neurotransmitters and to withdrawal symptoms, including craving. In the absence of nioctine, nAChRs regain their sensitivity to nicotine and become reactivated in response to a new dose." (Schwartz,

This study also showed that other factors like socioeconomic status and level of nicotine addiction affect quitting success.[59] In a similar basis, Brose et al. (2015), examined the impact of e-cigarette use while smoking on smoking cessation, reduction and attempts to quit. They concluded that the participants who used e-cigarettes daily at baseline reported more attempts to quit and daily use at follow-up was connected to reduced conventional cigarette use, while no daily use had no effects. However, daily use was not associated with smoking cessation.[60] Biener and Hargraves (2014), used data from a longitudinal study in two metropolitan areas in US and they tested e-cigarette use association with motivation to quit and smoking cessation. They also concluded that only intensive users (daily e-cigarette use for at least 1 month) were more likely to quit compared with intermittent or no users.[61]

Moreover, in 2006 Quik et al, tested the effect of long-term nicotine treatment against nigrostriatal damage in non-human primates. Their results showed that the levels of dopamine transporter, vesicular monoamine transporter, dopamine and nicotinic receptors were greater in nicotine-treated MPTP-lesion primates when compared to lesion primates not receiving nicotine (49).

Scientists recently identified a region in the brain that plays a key role in smoking cessation: the insular cortex.

In the study it was hypothesized that as the nicotine dependence progresses it would lead to low positivity in the mood, high negativity in the mood, and higher mood variability. The study also observed whether nicotine dependence in a person changes after increasing the frequency of the person smoking during the course of the study.

The participants had to meet certain criteria in order to participate. The criteria included certain health and demographic factors. The participants had to smoke at least 5 cigarettes per day for at least the last month, had to been smoking for at least a year, and be between 18 and 65 years old. In addition, the participants also had to have no history of any psychiatric, mental or neurological illness, no history of drugs, and no metal inside their bodies. The experiment took placed in 3 separate sections. In the process the participants had a smoking questionnaire they had to fill out. They also had to see a total of 60 images. These images were a mixture of negative antismoking slides, consequences of smoking, and neutral images. In the fMRI section of the experiment, four tasks were performed. During this section, brain activity was measured with a MRI scanner. The experiment studied the efficiency of graphic warning labels and the message it contained on smoking cessation and its effectiveness. Each participant participated over a time frame of 6 weeks. Each participant reported the behavior on smoking before and after completing each session that involved graphic warning labels and antismoking

My grandfather was a heavy smoker, but besides that supposedly he loved to take care of my brother and I. He wasn't allowed to smoke inside our house, but he still did, yes he is a savage we know. But soon his life started to all fall apart once he got sick. He loved to go to Vegas and trips were frequent. Soon instead of coming home to him buoyant. He looked depressed and pale like something was extremely wrong with him. Since I was young I didn't really notice and throughout it makes you look at things differently.

Cross-sectional studies have raised doubts whether ECs promote smoking cessation but recently-published randomized studies showed a significant potential of ECs to promote smoking reduction and cessation, even in smokers with no intention to quit. Still, many EC users fail to completely substitute smoking, and thus become “dual users”. It is important to understand the characteristics, patterns of use and perceived experience of dual users compared to EC users who have completely substituted smoking with EC use. The purpose of this case-control study was to identify the different characteristics of these two groups in a worldwide sample of EC users, by providing a questionnaire in several languages and by promoting the study through the Internet.

The majority of functional neuroscience studies have focused on the brains response to a task or a certain stimulus, however the brain is active even in it's resting state \cite{fox2007spontaneous}. There are spontaneous fluctuations in the resting state that can be measured, which are related to activity that is intrinsically generated by the brain. Resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) is a neuroimaging approach that aims to identify these spontaneous cerebral hemodynamic fluctuations and their associated functional connections \cite{nasiriavanaki2014high}. Functional connectivity is the study of inter-regional correlations in neuronal variability. \\

The subjects in question of this study is the smoking habit of 40 undergraduates in American universities. This is the observation of addiction to nicotine, a widely reported phenomenon that affects the health of one billion people daily. (1) This study plans to provide more light into an area of research that does not have a lot of

The low frequency oscillations around 0.01 Hz to 0.1 Hz are critical in understanding resting-state fMRI time-series (Biswal et al., 1995; Biswal et al., 1997; Cordes et al., 2001; Lowe et al., 2000; Lowe et al., 1996). A resting-state pattern is observed in the areas where there is a high possibility of overlap in function and neuroanatomy. For instance, motor, visual and auditory network . This helps us to infer that these regions form a functional network during rest. Now, it is important to understand processing of resting-state fMRI data. The methods through which a rs-fMRI can be obtained are seed based connectivity, principal component analysis, independent component analysis, singular value decomposition, clustering. A rs-FMRI analysis can be performed either by model-dependent method or Model free method. A model dependent method is a simple technique in which brain areas are matched with the time-series signal against all other areas. This results in generating a functional connectivity map (fcMap) for the selected area. A seed can be selected from a task dependent activation map acquired, pointing a specific area of interest. A disadvantage of this technique is the limited functional connectivity of that area in comparison to

This paper discusses the long-term effects of using nicotine effects on brain social implications and gives details about death rates among people who use tobacco. According to research, nicotine produces mood-altering effects in a person’s brain which are temporally pleasing.