Nicotine discovery may help smokers quit
Researchers have identified a group of receptors in the brains of laboratory mice which seem to be responsible for dependence on nicotine, the drug found in cigarettes, according to a study published today.
The discovery could make it possible to develop drugs that would help smokers quit, researchers said in the study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The receptors integrated in the surfaces of neurons in the brain can be composed of various sub-units, said Andrew Tapper, one of the study's authors.
The researchers found in one mouse that a mutated subunit known as "apha4" was unusually sensitive to the effects of nicotine, compared to normal neurons, supporting their findings that mice with mutant genes showed dependent behaviours with nicotine amounts much smaller than those in mice with normal genes.