PET-derived 'Dopamine Movies' of Early-Stage Addiction to Cigarette Smoking: A Pilot Study

 描述（由申请人提供）：吸烟是一个严重的全球公共卫生问题。科学家需要更好地了解吸烟和尼古丁依赖的神经基质，以指导开发更有效的戒烟药物。耶鲁大学的PI和团队最近开发并部署了一种新的图像分析技术，用于产生大脑对吸烟反应的“多巴胺电影”。这项技术已经产生了令人兴奋的发现：我们已经确定了吸烟时多巴胺反应的位置和速度的性别差异（Cosgrove，J Neurosci. 2014年12月10日;34（50）：16851-5。）。 知识差距：如果我们能想象新吸烟者在成瘾过程中对吸烟的反应，我们就能更好地理解线索和药物效应在依赖性发展中的相对重要性。不幸的是，在大多数国家，研究成瘾发展的目标人群是青少年，但他们通常不被允许接受PET作为研究对象。独特的研究人群：以色列男女普遍服兵役，沿着以色列军队中的吸烟机会，为研究人员研究吸烟成瘾的发病提供了独特的机会。我们的长期目标是通过PET和多巴胺电影研究这个独特的队列，以更好地了解吸烟成瘾的获得。首先，我们必须完成我们的短期目标：在以色列的PET研究中心验证我们的技术的使用，并接触研究人群。 国际合作：该项目将是耶鲁大学成像创新者与哈达萨/希伯来大学的PET科学家和其他研究人员之间的合作，以利用以色列独特的研究人群。该合作的近期目标是建立（NIDA支持的）成像技术，以便在以色列的研究地点对早期吸烟者进行大型研究。以各种方式重新分析最近发表的耶鲁数据将有助于验证和解释将在以色列进行的试点研究的结果。 该项目的目的是通过与一个备受尊敬的外国合作者建立伙伴关系，传播由NIDA资助的技术，以便抓住机会，研究由于以色列独特的情况而导致的早期吸烟者的吸烟成瘾问题。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cigarette smoking is a serious global public health issue. Scientists need to better understand the neural substrates of smoking and nicotine dependence in order to guide the development of more effective medications for smoking cessation. The PI and team at Yale have recently developed and deployed a new image analysis technique for producing "dopamine movies" of the brain's response to cigarette smoking. This technique has already yielded exciting findings: we have identified sex differences in the location and speed of the dopamine response to cigarette smoking (Cosgrove, J Neurosci. 2014 Dec 10;34(50):16851-5.). Knowledge Gap: If we could image responses of new smokers to smoking cigarettes during acquisition of addiction we could better understand the relative importance of cues and drug effects in the development of dependence. Unfortunately, the target population for studying developing addiction in most countries would be adolescents, but they are generally not permitted to undergo PET as research subjects Unique study population: Universal military service for men and women in Israel, along with cigarette access in the Israeli army, provides a unique opportunity to researchers to study the onset of smoking addiction. Our long term goal is to study this unique cohort with PET and dopamine movies to better understand the acquisition of smoking addiction. First, we must accomplish our short term goal: to validate the use of our technology at a PET site in Israel with access to the study population. International Collaboration: This project would be a collaboration between Yale imaging innovators and and PET scientists and other researchers at Hadassah /Hebrew University to take advantage of the unique study population in Israel. The collaboration's immediate goal would be to establish the (NIDA-supported) imaging technology necessary to execute a large study of early-stage smokers at the research site in Israel. Re-analyses in various modes of the recently-published Yale data will help to validate and explain the results of the pilot study to be obtained in Israel. The project is intended to disseminate NIDA-funded technology through partnership with a highly regarded foreign collaborator in order to seize the opportunity to study smoking addiction in early-smokers thanks to unique circumstances in Israel.