Psychopharmacological aspects of nicotine

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Abstract
Any author who writes about the psychopharmacology of nicotine faces a dilemma. If the review is restricted to studies in which nicotine alone has been used, the chapter will be very short. If the review is extended to include the effects of cigarette smoking on behaviour, then the question arises of whether the effects described are due to nicotine alone or whether they are the consequence of some other smoke constituent. Given that there are well over 2000 compounds besides nicotine in cigarette smoke, that possibility can never be ruled out. However, nicotine is pharmacologically the most potent agent in cigarette smoke at smoking-doses, and carbon monoxide has little or no psychological effects at smoking-doses (Guillerm et al. 1978). Consequently, this chapter includes studies of smoking as well as those using nicotine itself, and it discusses evidence of the extent to which nicotine was the essential agent in the behavioural changes.

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