Active clinical trials for "Tobacco Use Disorder"

The objective of this study is to investigate the relative contributions of nicotine replacement and sensorimotor replacement (i.e., smoking denicotinized cigarettes) on abstinence-induced smoking urges, withdrawal-related negative affect, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive task performance and 90-min ad libitum usual-brand smoking behavior in smokers with schizophrenia and non-psychiatric smokers.

Background: Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and researchers are interested in gaining a better understanding of the perceived beneficial effects of nicotine to help improve treatment strategies for nicotine dependence. Understanding the conditions under which nicotine improves attention and cognitive processing may provide more useful information for this research. The ability to pay attention and filter relevant from irrelevant stimuli is central to all aspects of information-processing. Top-down and bottom-up attentional processes illustrate how the brain combines stimuli and goal-directed behaviors. Bottom-up processing is an unconscious response to sensory input; for instance, when the eyes automatically focus on a prominent image in a picture. Top-down processing is a conscious response to drive attention toward specific stimuli; for instance, when a person is asked to focus on a less immediately noticeable image in a picture. Researchers are interested in determining whether nicotine improves cognitive performance by acting on top-down or bottom-up attentional mechanisms. Objectives: - To investigate the effect of nicotine on the top-down and bottom-up mechanisms of attention in cigarette smokers. Eligibility: - Current smokers (at least 10 cigarettes per day for at least 1 year) between 18 and 55 years of age. Design: This study will involve one training session and four experimental sessions. During the training session, participants will receive a sample dose of the nicotine nasal spray used in the study to determine if they can tolerate the effects. For each experimental session, participants will receive one dose of nicotine nasal spray (1 mg, 2 mg, or 3 mg) or placebo spray, followed by blood pressure and heart rate monitoring, performance of an attentional test, and questionnaires to rate participants perception of nicotine effectiveness. Participants may receive different doses at different sessions, and will not be told which dose they will receive at any given point.

In the present study, we investigate healthy subjects and schizophrenic patients who frequently show very low attentional capacity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiology (EEG) during attention-requiring tasks to assess the level of attentional network activity.

RATIONALE: Memantine hydrochloride may help people stop smoking by decreasing the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. PURPOSE: This randomized, pilot phase II trial studies how effective memantine hydrochloride works compared to placebo in helping cancer survivors stop smoking.

Smokers have three choices when faced with surgery: keep smoking, quit for a short time around surgery or quit for good. In the first specific aim, a decision aid was designed to help facilitate the discussion of these choices between smokers and healthcare providers. This second aim will test whether this decision aid improves the decisional quality compared with standard methods used to discuss perioperative smoking.

Subjects will be screened within 28 days before the first study treatment to confirm that they meet the requirements to participate in the trial. They will return to the site for two treatment visits, at least 12 hours each, and at least one day in between visits. At each visit treatment N1/3-I5 or Nicotine Inhaler 10 mg will be administered every hour for 11 hours. The investigator (or an appropriate delegate at the investigator site) will obtain informed consent from each subject. Blood samples will be drawn on a special schedule. The total predicted amount of blood sampled from each subject is 174 mL over the whole study. Subjects will be required to follow specific smoking and dietary restrictions and rate their urges to smoke, general liking of the product, and how easy the product is to use.

Cigarette smoking decreases life expectancy, causes devastating health complications, and costs society billions of dollars each year. These untoward consequences are especially pronounced among persons with schizophrenia (SCZ) because approximately 80% to 95% of this group smokes cigarettes. These high prevalence rates underscore the need for research investigating the determinants of smoking in patients with SCZ. Several researchers have observed that nicotine improves specific symptoms of SCZ including negative symptoms, negative affect, and cognitive deficits. This has led to the hypothesis that patients with SCZ smoke in an attempt to self-medicate. However, the mechanism(s) by which nicotine has its positive effect on symptoms remains unclear. The current proposal posits that neural inhibition (NI) is a physiological mechanism of this effect, while variation in the alpha-7-nicotinic receptor subunit gene (CHRNA7) represents the genetic underpinnings of these processes. The proposed study will assess NI and symptom improvement after acute administration of nicotine to both smokers and nonsmokers with SCZ. In addition, NI and CHRNA7 variation will be tested as predictors of patients' ability to reduce/quit smoking following smoking treatment. These data may lead to the development of new pharmacological strategies for treating the symptoms of SCZ and new methods for assisting these patients to quit smoking.

RATIONALE: Physician-initiated smoking cessation strategies may be effective in getting early-stage cancer patients to quit smoking. PURPOSE: Randomized clinical trial to compare the effectiveness of a physician-initiated stop-smoking program with the usual care for patients receiving treatment for early-stage cancer.

Effects of N-Acetyl-Cysteine in patients with bipolar depression (primary outcome is Hamilton Depression Rating Scale) with and without tobacco use disorder and on inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers

This study investigates the mechanisms, through which physical exercise impacts positively on abstinence in tobacco use disorder, with fMRI and behavioral tests.