GRANTS. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have shown that repeated use of nicotine leads to changes in the neural circuitry of the brain that remain even several months after quitting smoking. Now Louise Adermark, one of the nine Gothenburg researchers who is now receiving support from the Brain Foundation, hopes to find a completely new type of treatment to reduce the risk of relapse of nicotine addiction.
Nine researchers from Gothenburg will share 6.5 million kronor when the Brain Foundation distributes 50 million kronor to 78 Swedish research projects this week. The research funds are going to, among other things addiction, bipolar disorder and stroke rehabilitation.
Drugs for smoking cessation are not news, but Louise Adermark’s research group at the University of Gothenburg wants to understand how nicotine addiction affects the brain and how to avoid falling back into nicotine addiction after quitting smoking. Drug addiction is a chronic illness characterized by loss of control. It produces changes to the brain that make it difficult to resist relapse.
“We still know very little about the brain. By mapping how addictive drugs affect signaling in the brain and how this could eventually lead to behavioral changes, we hope to be able to get a better understanding of how balance in the brain can be restored,” said Louise Adermark, associate professor at the University of Gothenburg.
Once a smoker – always a smoker?
A nerve cell group called the striatum is located in the brain. Research shows that the nicotine in cigarettes first releases the reward chemical dopamine in one part of the striatum, which gives the smoker pleasurable feeling. But with continued smoking, it links to other parts of the striatum and instead ends up in a “drug memory” in the part of the brain associated with habit formation. This behavior is established and it leads to addiction. Changes in the habit-forming part of the striatum took time to establish, and they had normalized after 7 months without nicotine. But if nicotine was taken again, as in a relapse, the changes to the brain came back immediately. Scientists believe that the previous intake created an increased sensitivity to the drug, may persist throughout life.
“Tobacco smoking is still the single factor has the greatest negative impact on public health and produces enormous costs to society. There is an addiction disorder which means that many people need help in order to stop. If the research can find methods of treatment to reduce relapses, it would be a great benefit for society,” said Anna Hemlin, Secretary General at the Brain Foundation.
Research funding for the University of Gothenburg
- Mikael Landén, Bipolar disorder
- Ingmar Skoog, Alzheimer’s disease
- Peter Carlsson, Blood vessels in the brain
- Bo Söderpalm, Addiction
- Marcela Pekna, Children’s brains
- Susanna Cardell, MS and other neuro-inflammation
- Louise Adermark, Addiction
- Elisabet Jerlhag Holm, Addiction
- Katharina Stibrant Sunnerhagen, Stroke Rehabilitation
About the Brain Foundation
The Brain Foundation works to raise funds to finance essential research on the brain, its capacity and all of the illnesses, injuries and disabilities that cause great suffering to victims and their families. The target is to find new treatments and cures. The Brain Foundation also works to increase knowledge about the brain and it related illnesses, injuries and disability among the public.
