Effect of progesterone administration in male and female smokers on nicotine withdrawal and neural response to smoking cues: role of progesterone conversion to allopregnanolone.

Plain-language guide to PMID 36274158 (2022): double-blind randomized controlled trial of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Key Facts

PMID: 36274158
Journal: Biology of sex differences
Year: 2022
Study type: Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Novick AM et al. (11 authors)
DOI: 10.1186/s13293-022-00472-w
Registered trial: NCT01954966

What This Study Did, in Plain Language

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Conversion of progesterone to the neurosteroid allopregnanolone is hypothesized to partly underlie the therapeutic effects of progesterone; however, this has not been investigated clinically.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

The ratio of allopregnanolone:progesterone was analyzed in relationship to nicotine withdrawal, smoking urges, mood states, subjective nicotine effects, and neural response to smoking cues.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

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.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

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

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Nicotine, Progesterone, Pregnanolone, Smokers, Cues, Neurosteroids and Substance Withdrawal Syndrome.

Author keywords: Allopregnanolone, Sex-differences and Smoking.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2022 (Biology of sex differences), a journal based in England.

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

Our Notes on the Compound

Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide): Pure nicotine as a signaling tool, separated from smoking and vaping.

Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in the library

Source: PubMed record. This explanation is written by PeptideWhiz from the public record. For research and education only. Not medical advice; no dosing information is given.