THC reduces the anticipatory nucleus accumbens response to reward in subjects with a nicotine addiction.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

Recent evidence has implicated the endocannabinoid (eCB) system in nicotine addiction.

Motivated by this evidence, the researchers tested the hypothesis that eCB modulation of reward processing is altered in subjects with a nicotine addiction (NAD).

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

What Was Measured

Motivated by this evidence, the researchers tested the hypothesis that eCB modulation of reward processing is altered in subjects with a nicotine addiction (NAD).

Eleven HC and 10 NAD participated in a 3-T functional MRI (fMRI) study with a double-blind, cross-over, placebo-controlled design, using a Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) paradigm with three reward levels.

The subject headings attached to it are Dronabinol, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Motivation, Nucleus Accumbens, Reaction Time and Reward.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

The publication is from 2013 (Translational psychiatry), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.