Nicotine: can it save your brain?

1
Nicotine can it save your brain?

• Issue 23 of Cosmos, October 2008
• by Becky McCall
• Is it a scourge on society or a blessing in
  disguise?
• Public enemy number one may soon be a treatment
  for cognitive diseases.

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A growing body of evidence suggests that smoking
helps delay the progression of Parkinson's
disease, and potentially other cognitive diseases
as well. These are statistics that rarely see the
light of day they are hidden from the public by
layers of anti-smoking campaigns and health
warnings.
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For example, a review of epidemiological studies
led by researchers from the University of
Washington, in Seattle, USA, and published in the
journal Behavioural Brain Research in 2000,
showed that non-smokers are twice as likely to
develop Parkinson's disease as smokers.
4

• Another review of 44 previous studies,
  published in the U.S. journal Annals of Neurology
  in 2002, found that smokers have a 60 per cent
  lower risk of developing the disease.

5
Abnormal proteins found at high levels between
nerve cells in the brains of Alzheimer's
sufferers (known as amyloid-ß and amyloid
plaques) are reduced in both Alzheimer's patients
and in other elderly patients who smoke.
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• Dopamine, a neurotransmitter or chemical
  messenger in the brain, is released after
  nicotine activates nicotinic receptors in the
  midbrain. These receptors in turn activate
  regions responsible for movement and motivation,
  as well as addiction behaviour.
• "In patients with Parkinson's disease, neurones
  are lost in these two regions. So stimulation of
  any remaining neurones with nicotine could help
  prevent further decline," explains Picciotto.

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THE POWER OF NICOTINE in the human nervous system
has been known since the early 20th century.
Nicotine mimics a neurotransmitter called
acetylcholine, and is a chemical signal sent
between nerve cells.