Nicotine Withdrawal
Millions of people know from personal experience that smoking is a tough habit to kick. The reason is that nicotine is addictive. Even though nicotine’s high isn’t as dramatic as cocaine or heroin’s, it’s equally as addictive as those illegal drugs.
And nicotine withdrawal is very real. It’s why so many smokers try many times before they finally quit for good.
Nicotine affects all areas of your body, from your heart and blood vessels to your hormones, metabolism, and brain. When you don’t have it anymore, you go through withdrawal. You’ll physically crave that nicotine hit and become irritable if you can’t have it.
Nicotine withdrawal usually lasts only a month or so, but you could be fighting the mental battle against cigarettes for a long time.
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Brain Area: binding to nicotinic receptors in the brain, increasing dopamine; opiate, serotonic, glutamic and other receptors apply in withdrawal
Symptoms: nicotine cravings, irritability, anxiety and difficulty concentrating; symptoms usually disappear after four weeks.
Progression:
Causes: genetics may affect the severity of withdrawal
Medications: several medications can be used
Therapies: increased exercise, avoiding “smoking situations,” avoiding temptations, friend-support
4 CURRENT ARTICLES
FROM PUBMED
The world-wide medical research
reports chosen for each diagnosis
Clicking each title opens the
PubMed article’s summary-abstract.
- Sustained reduction of attentional bias to smoking cues by smartphone-delivered attentional bias modification training for smokersby Jason D Robinson on January 13, 2022
CONCLUSIONS: Thirteen days of smartphone-delivered ABM training, as an adjunct to smoking cessation treatment, reduced AB to both modality-specific and cross-modality smoking cues but did not impact smoking-related behavior. While ABM can reduce AB to smoking cues across modalities, it is unclear whether it has therapeutic potential as an adjunct to conventional smoking cessation therapy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
- Neurobiological Mechanisms of Nicotine Reward and Aversionby Lauren Wills on January 12, 2022
Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) regulate the rewarding actions of nicotine contained in tobacco that establish and maintain the smoking habit. nAChRs also regulate the aversive properties of nicotine, sensitivity to which decreases tobacco use and protects against tobacco use disorder. These opposing behavioral actions of nicotine reflect nAChR expression in brain reward and aversion circuits. nAChRs containing α4 and β2 subunits are responsible for the high-affinity nicotine...
- Comparison of withdrawal symptom intensity between hypnosis and nicotine-replacement-therapies: A pilot studyby Guillaume Lourmière on January 10, 2022
Smoking cessation is a global public health issue. Nicotine dependence is a dynamic process that is not limited to physical dependence. Hypnosis can be helpful in the global management of smoking cessation. We explored this effect by comparing the effects of hypnosis and nicotine-replacement therapies (NRT) on tobacco withdrawal.Thirty participants were included in this comparative-randomized pilot study in parallel controlled groups after ethical validation. Participants were recruited by a...
- Administration of BDNF in the ventral tegmental area produces a switch from a nicotine-non-dependent D1R-mediated motivational state to a nicotine-dependent-like D2R-mediated motivational stateby Taryn E Grieder on December 28, 2021
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been implicated in the transition from a non-dependent motivational state to a drug-dependent and drug-withdrawn motivational state. Chronic nicotine can increase BDNF in the rodent brain and is associated with smoking severity in humans; however, it is unknown whether this increased BDNF is linked functionally to the switch from a nicotine-non-dependent to a nicotine-dependent state. We used a place conditioning paradigm to measure the conditioned...