Neuropharmacology of nicotine dependence

Abstract

The occurrence of withdrawal symptoms is regarded as the key to mediating smoking relapse amongst smokers. The present study acknowledged the high relapse rates emerging from the inability to address the causes of powerful addiction effects besides identifying chronic disorders caused by nicotine. The present study explored nicotine addiction and its effects on different smoking patterns to provide an informative platform to design interventions that would deliver effective ways of quitting smoking. The study utilized systemic reviews on publications of previous studies obtained from scholarly journal databases, including PubMed, Medline, EBSCO Host, Google Scholar, and Cochrane. Moreover, the study used secondary information obtained from health organizations using filters and keywords to retrieve relevant information. The use of search keywords and filters limited the study to relevant peer-reviewed journals. The study utilized information retrieved from 35 studies obtained from peer-reviewed journals on “nicotine dependence,” “smoking cessation,” and “pharmacology of nicotine dependence and addiction.” The drug tolerance arising in nicotine dependence involved minimized tolerance often occurring during recurrent administration of drugs translated to neuroadaptation. The brain tends to develop challenges in the absence of nicotine, particularly when individuals quit smoking, thus compelling them to backslide from their abstinence. Higher nicotine dependence demotivates individuals from quitting smoking, making the cessation interventions unfruitful, worsened by the inability to understand the causative factors. The solution to overcome nicotine dependence alongside tobacco usage involves a complex treatment technique that would aim to reduce the probability of relapse. Nicotine dependence, Nicotine addiction, Tobacco addiction cycle, Neural survival, Pharmacology of nicotine.