Assessing Discrimination of Nicotine in Humans Via Cigarette Smoking

Conclusions:
With sufficient training exposures, smokers can discriminate nicotine between cigarettes differing in nicotine contents.

Implications:
The interoceptive stimulus effects of nicotine are critical to understanding reinforcement from cigarette smoking behavior. Because of the very recent availability of Spectrum research cigarettes from NIDA, with specific known amounts of nicotine content, the study of nicotine discrimination in humans via cigarette smoking may now be feasible. Our results demonstrate that, with sufficient training, smokers can behaviorally discriminate nicotine from four puffs’ exposure between cigarettes differing in nicotine contents. Future research should evaluate human discrimination of nicotine from greater amounts of cigarette smoke exposure, as well as in response to other procedural variations.

Source: Nicotine and Tobacco Research - August 9, 2016 Category: Addiction Authors: Perkins, K. A., Kunkle, N., Michael, V. C., Karelitz, J. L., Donny, E. C. Tags: Original Investigation Source Type: research