What the news
means for you
Audrey Darville, ARNP
ARNP, Certified Tobacco
Treatment Specialist
&
Advances
Insights
Stop-smoking medications do
reduce cravings, studies show
January 2011
Two common medications used by smokers
trying to give up...
More
What the news
means for you
Audrey Darville, ARNP
ARNP, Certified Tobacco
Treatment Specialist
&
Advances
Insights
Stop-smoking medications do
reduce cravings, studies show
January 2011
Two common medications used by smokers
trying to give up tobacco work by acting on
the brain to reduce nicotine cravings.
That’s
what researchers found in two recent studies
reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) of the brain was used in the studies
to document how both bupropion (Zyban,
Wellbutrin) and varenicline (Chantix®
) reduced
activity in the brain’s ventral striatum and
medial orbitofrontal cortex – areas that affect
cravings and rewards.
Both studies were done
at the Center for the Study of Addictions at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Antidepressant affects brain activity
The first study looked at bupropion.
Originally
developed as an antidepressant and marketed
as Wellbutrin, bupropion is now also
Less
