Effects of nicotine deprivation and replacement on BOLD-fMRI response to smoking cues as a function of DRD4 VNTR genotype.

What Was Tested

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

However, little is known about the associated neural mechanisms.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Non-treatment-seeking Caucasian smokers completed overnight abstinence and viewed smoking and neutral cues during 2 separate functional magnetic resonance imaging scans while wearing either a nicotine or placebo patch (order randomized) and were genotyped for the DRD4 VNTR.

The researchers conducted mixed-effects repeated-measures analyses of variance (within-subject factor: nicotine or placebo patch; between-subject factor: DRD4 long [L: ≥ 1 copy of ≥ 7 repeats] or short [S: 2 copies ≤ 6 repeats] genotype) of 6 a priori regions of interest.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and placebo-controlled.

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

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

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Alleles, Amygdala, Brain, Cues, Exons, Genotype and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2014 (Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco), a journal based in England.

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