Treatment for tobacco dependence: effect on brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptor density.

Cigarette smoking leads to upregulation of brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), including the common α4β2* nAChR subtype. Although a substantial percentage of smokers receive treatment for tobacco dependence with counseling and/or medication, the effect of a standard course of these treatments on nAChR upregulation has not yet been reported. In the present study, 48 otherwise healthy smokers underwent positron emission tomography (PET) scanning with the radiotracer 2-FA (for labeling α4β2* nAChRs) before and after treatment with either cognitive-behavioral therapy, bupropion HCl, or pill placebo.

VIRTUAL REALITY CUE EXPOSURE THERAPY FOR THE TREATMENT OF TOBACCO DEPENDENCE.

Researchers and clinicians have recently begun using Virtual Reality (VR) to create immersive and interactive cue exposure paradigms. The current study aimed to assess the effectiveness of individual cue exposure therapy (CET), using smoking-related VR cues (smoking-VR) as a smoking cessation treatment compared to a placebo-VR (neutral cue) treatment. The sample consisted of healthy treatment-seeking cigarette smokers, who underwent bi-weekly cognitive behavioral group therapy (CBT) plus either smoking-VR CET or placebo-VR CET (random assignment).

Effect of bupropion treatment on brain activation induced by cigarette-related cues in smokers.

Context: Nicotine-dependent smokers exhibit craving and brain activation in the prefrontal and limbic regions when presented with cigarette-related cues. Bupropion hydrochloride treatment reduces cue-induced craving in cigarette smokers; however, the mechanism by which bupropion exerts this effect has not yet been described.

Objective: To assess changes in regional brain activation in response to cigarette-related cues from before to after treatment with bupropion (vs placebo).

Smoking-induced change in intrasynaptic dopamine concentration: effect of treatment for Tobacco Dependence.

The aim of this study was to determine whether standard treatments for Tobacco Dependence affect smoking-induced changes in intrasynaptic dopamine (DA) concentration. Forty-three otherwise healthy adult cigarette smokers (10 to 40 cigarettes per day) were treated with either practical group counseling (PGC) psychotherapy (n=14), bupropion HCl (n=14), or matching pill placebo (n=15) (random assignment) for 8 weeks. Before and after treatment, each subject underwent a bolus-plus-continuous-infusion (11)C-raclopride positron emission tomography (PET) scanning session, during which he or she smoked a regular cigarette.

Effects of treatment for tobacco dependence on resting cerebral glucose metabolism.

While bupropion HCl and practical group counseling (PGC) are commonly used treatments for tobacco dependence, the effects of these treatments on brain function are not well established. For this study, 54 tobacco-dependent cigarette smokers underwent resting (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) scanning before and after 8 weeks of treatment with bupropion HCl, PGC, or pill placebo. Using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM 2), changes in cerebral glucose metabolism from before to after treatment were compared between treatment groups and correlations were determined between amount of daily cigarette usage and cerebral glucose metabolism.