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Chinese scholars to find new ways to quit smoking

      Recently, "JAMA Psychiatry" (American Medical Association Journal of Psychiatry) published a Peking University Sixth Hospital, Professor Lu Lin, a research paper - "application of propranolol-specific inhibition of activation of nicotine-related memory on nicotine psychological craving Impact". The study successfully achieved results from animal research to clinical trials of the transformation, the researchers innovative use of behavioral and pharmacological methods to eliminate the addiction of nicotine dependent memory, reduce psychological desire for people who can not quit smoking bring gospel.
      Lu Lin introduction, tobacco addiction and dependence is the nature of nicotine dependence, is a chronic high recurrence disease. Nicotine can lead to plastic changes in the neural pathway of the brain, the formation of strong and lasting memory of nicotine addiction, the continued existence of smoking nicotine dependence desire, this desire will weaken or even destroy the determination to quit smoking. Therefore, the elimination of nicotine dependent addiction to pathological memory, reduce psychological desire, is the key to the success of clinical smoking cessation.
      They first found in the animal nicotine addiction memory model, the use of small doses of nicotine as an unconditional stimulus to evoke addiction memory, and then consolidate the time window to give propranolol can effectively eliminate all the memory of animals, nicotine addiction. Further studies in smoking addicts found that oral administration of propranolol could eliminate smoking-related memory and reduce smoking-related effects in patients who were given unconditioned stimuli (ie, nicotine entered into the body after smoking) Cue - induced psychological craving.
      "JAMA Psychiatry" published the paper at the same time, a commentary article pointed out that the series of research group Lulin, changed the pathological addiction memory once formed difficult to eliminate the traditional point of view, to find a core mechanism to eliminate material addiction Of the treatment is to treat smoking addiction and other material addiction taken a landmark step.

The study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China ("973").