A team of scientists from the Neuropharmacology Laboratory-NeuroPhar of Pompeu Fabra University has shown in a study in rodents that treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs reverses the cognitive disorders caused by nicotine withdrawal. The work, led by the researchers Fernando Berrendero and Rafael Maldonado, has been published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity.

Early nicotine withdrawal causes numerous undesirable effects, including physical, affective and cognitive symptoms which include attention deficits and memory impairment. Several studies suggest that these cognitive disorders are involved in relapse into tobacco consumption that occurs in the first few days after attempting to quit. In fact, varenicline, a drug marketed to treat tobacco addiction, works by enhancing mood and cognitive function at the beginning of the withdrawal period.

The chance of being able to use anti-inflammatory drugs to address one of the lesser known aspects of nicotine withdrawal, learning and memory disorders, can open a highly innovative treatment strategy.

“In this study, in which we have used models in rodents, we have shown that the cognitive deficits are associated with an inflammatory process in key brain areas in the regulation of memory such as the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex”, says Fernando Berrendero. Specifically, they observed an activation of the microglia and an increase in the expression of cytokines in these brain areas.

The results are part of the doctoral thesis by Rocío Saravia, first author of the article, who comments that “treatment with a non-psychoactive cannabinoid with anti-inflammatory properties, cannabidiol, as well as with a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), indomethacin, reversed the cognitive disorders of nicotine withdrawal as well as the associated inflammatory markers”. Therefore, these results underline the usefulness of anti-inflammatory agents to improve cognitive performance during early nicotine withdrawal.

“The chance of being able to use anti-inflammatory drugs to address one of the lesser known aspects of nicotine withdrawal, learning and memory disorders -that play a key role in relapse to consumption- can open a highly innovative treatment strategy to treat nicotine dependency”, concludes Rafael Maldonado, full professor of Pharmacology at UPF.

The work also involved researchers Marc Ten-Blanco and María Teresa Grande of Francisco de Vitoria University in Madrid.

Reference article

Saravia R, Ten-Blanco M, Grande MT, Maldonado R, Berrendero F. Anti-inflammatory agents for smoking cessation? Focus on cognitive déficits associated with nicotine withdrawal in male mice. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, November 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2018.11.003.