Comments on: Nicotine Causes Epigenetic Changes in Mice that Spur Cocaine Addiction

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:40:07 +0000

This sounds like a really cool experiment. I’d be interested to see if, based on the epigenetic changes from nicotine you could track down connections between other drugs. I definitely remember a behavioural study which found that in mice which were addicted to, then weaned off cocaine, caffeine could trigger cocaine cravings.

@4: The article was never saying that only nicotine addiction can get you to use other drugs or that people always use nicotine first. The only conclusion was that in people who A) use nicotine and then B) subsequently use other drugs, the rate of addiction is higher. Nicotine might make you more readily addicted to cocaine, but it can’t create cocaine addiction out of thin air, so if you receive only nicotine, you’ll never become addicted to cocaine. And cocaine is still addictive even if you never smoke, nicotine just gives it a boost. Even if this pathway holds 100% true in humans there will still be dozens of different paths to different addictions. In your case it could be that some other predisposition caused you to use both nicotine and other drugs as a more general ‘addictive phenotype’.
Secondly, the fact that you used other drugs, then nicotine holds no scientific weight, its just an anecdote. Studies like these are done with many many animals, and the findings are based on statistical significance, your story has an n=1.

By: Karlin

Karlin — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 07:55:03 +0000

Ahh, the age of reason – Stunning discoveries in science and we still have people who don’t believe in science.

But this is great knowledge. I would bet they find that nicotine is the best at this, that alcohol and marijuana do not act as gateway drugs in the neurological way that nic does.

And they will find why Marijuana causes paranoia in some people, and they might link that to other conditions, and YES VIRGINIA we are going to have a better world with less suffering.

Humans struggle with our gift of consciousness, it has many psychological hurdles. This kind of research will help us deal with consciousness.

By: Cromignon

Cromignon — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:29:49 +0000

“Looking deeper at the brain cells implicated in addiction and reward, they found that FosB, a gene whose expression helps cement addiction, was expressed at levels 74% higher than in mice who hadn’t had nicotine.”

Never heard of anyone being addicted to cement. Why would a gene want to help do that?

By: Iain

Iain — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:09:01 +0000

But what about the mice that had cocaine first several times, then had nicotine and cocaine?
Some people don’t believe in guns either, but they’ll still shoot and maybe kill you.

By: Nibra

Nibra — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:43:09 +0000

Maybe what is wrong with the Human Race is that mice are used as examples for the Human Condition.

By: gwern

gwern — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:02:34 +0000

Pretty nifty – nicotine’s habit-formation is interesting stuff. But too bad the link is now paywalled.

By: TheCritic

TheCritic — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:49:10 +0000

That’s the great thing about science and research. You don’t have to believe in it. It’ll exist whether you want it to or not.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:38:28 +0000

CRAP! I didn’t smoke cigs until way after I’d used drugs and alcohol.(Which I don’t use anymore) I believe I was predisposed sure, but I don’t believe in the tobacco connection.

By: Marlo

Marlo — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:08:19 +0000

Etienne, read it a bit more carefully: it’s comparing the mice that received nicotine for several days to those that “had only received nicotine for 24 hours.” And then it says, “they found that FosB, a gene whose expression helps cement addiction, was expressed at levels 74% higher [in mice who had been given nicotine] than in mice who hadn’t had nicotine.”

By: Etienne

Etienne — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:55:51 +0000

Don’t you mean “- than the mice who had received only cocaine” (in “mice that had been given nicotine for many days returned again and again to locations where they had been given cocaine, far more—nearly double the frequency—than mice who had only received nicotine”) ?
I’m not surprised that mice who received cocaine + nicotine returned to those spots more than the mice who received nicotine. The appropriate control is mice who received cocaine but not nicotine.

By: Christina Viering

Christina Viering — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:14:20 +0000

Another reason not to smoke.