Cobbers on the Brain

Everyone knows the horrors of cigarettes. We’ve all seen the commercials of the premature aging, the inevitable lung cancer, the life draining chemicals that come with cigarettes. We’ve heard the threats of chewing tobacco—seen the story of the man who lost half of his jaw to mouth cancer.

(From: http://designbump.com/anti-smoking-advertisements/)

We’re all aware and rightfully afraid of the power of addictive nicotine and the cocktails of chemicals it is mixed up with.

But what about ethanol?

We love ethanol—beer, wine, cocktails, happy hour. We can’t seem to fathom a party or holiday without it. We idolize a good time in the media by complete loss of control and the endless flow of ethanol.
However, the two drugs share commonalities we never seem to give them credit for. The brain chemistry alterations of both nicotine and ethanol are very likely the same in many ways, and addiction of both can be extremely detrimental to our health. It’s time we reexamine the ways we look at ethanol.

The Relationship

Ethanol and nicotine act on the same receptors in the brain, the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs).

Nicotine activates these receptors and leads to receptor desensitization—meaning the tolerance for nicotine increases with each dose. This results in more receptors present, leading to a dependence upon nicotine to continue to simulate them—this is a major proponent in nicotine’s addictive properties.
Ethanol also is linked to these receptors. It potentiates these receptors leading them to be active more often. This increased activation then leads into the cycle that is observed with nicotine addiction. Ethanol does not activate the receptors in the same manner as nicotine does, however, and this is likely a reason it is considered less addictive.
Along with this this receptor commonality, the patterns of addiction are the same and the areas of the brain the two drugs effect overlap tremendously. These brain structures include: the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the prefrontal cortex, the striatum, the amygdala, and the hippocampus.
All of these major brain regions are affected by both drugs and may explain the cross-sensitization observed between the two—meaning that once a person is addicted to one they are more likely to get addicted to the other.
Ethanol begins to look a lot like nicotine in the brain. Why then do we paint such a black and white picture of the two drugs?

(#artstracts)

Time for Reexamination

We can argue that anti-alcohol rhetoric is in the media, too. We have seen a dramatic increase in campaigns against drunk driving in recent decades. But, there is little knowledge or publicity about the effects of ethanol on our overall health and brain chemistry.
There are surely no shrunken, deteriorated brain posters displaying ethanol dangers next to the smoking lungs harmed by chronic cigarette usage.
Granted, the lines of alcohol addiction are blurrier, and the fact of the matter remains that alcohol is less addictive than nicotine. But this should not be our scapegoat for research into the effects of ethanol abuse.
It is notably easier to drink one beer per week than to simply smoke one cigarette. But why is that? Because these two drugs are so linked in their brain chemistry—affecting the same neuronal receptors, displaying the same development pathways of addiction, targeting the same brain structures—there is need for further research into these connections.
In the research our class conducted on this topic in the past week we learned a lot about the effects of nicotine, and learned very inconclusive results about the effects of ethanol—simply because there is significantly less research done on this drug.
It’s time we stop saying cheers, and start investigating the links. While it may be true that ethanol is less of a threat to health, it is extremely hypocritical to raise one drug up so highly above the other while scientific links continue to emerge.

The amount of people smoking cigarettes in the United States has been on the decline since it was first recorded in 1965, and is continuing to decline. This is largely because of the vast amount of research that has been put into showing how many negative health effects that smoking has on a person, as well as being an expensive and addictive habit. You may be looking for information on how to rid either yourself or someone you know from cigarettes, which “harms nearly every organ in the body” and is responsible for almost one in five deaths in the United States, usually because of premature deaths related to smoking-related diseases.
Many people start out at a young age and later on seek to quit for various reasons, but that can be very difficult because of the neuroplastic changes that occur because of long term nicotine consumption, a chemical in cigarettes and other tobacco products, which acts on receptors found in the brain. In fact, one neuronal receptor, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), is named for its activation by nicotine. nAChR is found extensively throughout the brain on neuronal cells and plays a significant role in brain plasticity.

Brain plasticity means that the brain can physically change it’s patterns of neuronal connections in response to various types of inputs it receives, such as learning, the environmental stress, or drugs. The brain regulates which neurons connect and how strongly they interact, leading to behavioral changes in a person.
This is where nicotine plays its role as an addictive substance, because when the nAChR is activated by nicotine, it initiates “long term potentiation,” the strengthening of neuronal connections in response to stimulus. Addictive learning is involved with the act of smoking cigarettes because nicotine directly activates the neurons involved with performing this behavior, and the reward system is activated. The neurons that are activated while a person smokes a cigarette are strengthening their output because of the effects of nicotine. This is why certain emotions, locations and smells (like smoke) can trigger a person’s desire to smoke. Even the hand motions of smoking and holding a cigarette will activate the neurons that have been over-strengthened and create a reward response in the brain.

Looking at the trial of quitting this habit from a neurological perspective reveals why quitting is so hard. A person who has smoked cigarettes for a large portion of their life has rewired their brain so that they need cigarettes in order to feel good, because that is a major part of their reward system (dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens). The brain seeks activation of the reward system and creates negative emotions to get the addict to perform the action and resolve its stress. Luckily, there are treatment options like medicine, nicotine replacement, and therapy to make it easier. Talk to your doctor for options that can assist you in your journey towards recovery.