New research has found that prenatal exposure to nicotine increases the likelihood that the offspring will start smoking earlier than their peers and are more likely to become addicted to nicotine, especially as a result of stress or peer pressure.
The researchers, from the Academy of Finland’s Research Programme on Substance Abuse and Addictions, used mice to perform the study. They added nicotine to the water of pregnant mice to test the effects of prenatal exposure to nicotine. Treating the mice with nicotine during pregnancy increased the frequency of self-administration of nicotine in the offspring compared to mice that weren’t exposed to nicotine, even at lower doses.
The study also looked at the receptor-level combined effects of opioids and nicotine, and found that opioids, which normally attach to their own receptors, also bind to nicotinic receptors, causing altered responses to nicotine. This could explain the common use of both nicotine and other substances, such as cocaine or heroin.
The results could help create new methods of addiction treatment for both smoking and substance abuse.
The study was conducted as a Finnish-Russian project between the Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Helsinki, the Saint Petersburg Pavlov Medical University, and Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow.
Source: Science Daily, Children of Mothers Who Smoked During Pregnancy at Increased Risk of Becoming Smokers, Mouse Study Suggests, March 22, 2011
http://www.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/addiction/nicotine-addiction/prenatal-smoking-exposure-nicotine-addiction/