Tobacco and Nicotine

Clinical Research on Tobacco and Nicotine 

Tobacco Use Disorder (CUD) continues to be a leading preventable cause of death in the US and worldwide. Effective pharmacotherapy can be effective to help some individuals with tobacco use disorder, but relapse is frequent and long term abstinence continues to be difficult to achieve. The Division on Substance Use Disorders carries out research on tobacco use at in the Substance Treatment and Research Service (STARS) as well as part of the Clinical Trials Network (CTN). Several lines of research have been developed in this area, including developing novel biomarkers that predict whether individuals might respond to smoking-cessation efforts, developing novel pharmacotherapeutic and technology-enhanced psychotherapy programs, as well as large, pragmatic clinical trials of smoking cessation treatment and psychiatric co-morbidities. 

Faculty conducting clinical tobacco/nicotine research:

Frances Levin, MD
John Mariani, MD
Sean X Luo, MD/PhD
Christina Brezing, MD
Edward V Nunes, MD

Laboratory Research on Tobacco and Nicotine

Several laboratory studies are ongoing in dissecting the relationship between smoking cigarettes and cannabis as well as interrogating the basic functional neurocircuitry that underlies smoking and related substance use disorders and co-morbidities. These research projects use a variety of techniques including human subjects, psychophysics, functional neuroimaging, and experimental psychometric and behavioral pharmacology studies. 

Faculty conducting laboratory tobacco/nicotine research:

Suzette Evans, PhD
Richard Foltin, PhD
Margaret Haney, PhD
Nasir Naqvi, MD/PhD