Nicotine & Schizophrenia
2017-01-25 23:48:07.500289+01 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Expected, to many of us who've hung out with smokers, and hopefully this'll be integrated into tobacco addiction management programs: Nicotine normalizes brain activity deficits that are key to schizophrenia.
"Our study provides compelling biological evidence that a specific genetic variant contributes to risk for schizophrenia, defines the mechanism responsible for the effect and validates that nicotine improves that deficit," said Jerry Stitzel, a researcher at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) and one of four CU Boulder researchers on the study.
Led by Uwe Maskos -- a researcher at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France -- the study found that when mice with schizophrenic characteristics were given nicotine daily, their sluggish brain activity increased within two days. Within one week it had normalized.
"Basically the nicotine is compensating for a genetically determined impairment," says Stitzel. "No one has ever shown that before."
Same press release from the University of Colorado Boulder: Nicotine normalizes brain deficits key to schizophrenia.