Abstract
Nicotine dependence is a serious public health concern. Optimal treatment of nicotine dependence will require greater understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance of smoking behaviors. A growing literature indicates sex and menstrual phase differences in responses to nicotine. The aim of this study was to assess sex and menstrual phase influences on a broad range of measures of nicotine response including subjective drug effects, cognition, physiological responses, and symptoms of withdrawal, craving, and affect. Using a well-established intravenous nicotine paradigm and biochemical confirmation of overnight abstinence and menstrual cycle phase, analyses were performed to compare sex (age 18–50 years; 115 male and 45 female) and menstrual cycle phase (29 follicular and 16 luteal) effects. Females had diminished subjective drug effects of, but greater physiological responses to, nicotine administration. Luteal-phase females showed diminished subjective drug effects and better cognition relative to follicular-phase women. These findings offer candidate mechanisms through which the luteal phase, wherein progesterone is dominant relative to estradiol, may be protective against vulnerability to smoking.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Stacy Minnix, Lance Barnes, Katherine Barrett, Christopher Cryan, and Ellen Mitchell for their valuable contributions to study, including help with subject recruitment and data collection. We also thank the participants for their time. This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (R01 DA12690, R01 DA12849, R03 DA027474) and the Veterans Administration Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC). EED was supported by K12 DA031050 from NIDA, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), and NIH Office of the Director (OD). AIH was supported by K12 DA00167 from NIDA.
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DeVito, E., Herman, A., Waters, A. et al. Subjective, Physiological, and Cognitive Responses to Intravenous Nicotine: Effects of Sex and Menstrual Cycle Phase. Neuropsychopharmacol 39, 1431–1440 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2013.339
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2013.339
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