The impact of pharmacological and psychological factors on measures of nicotine and tobacco reinforcement and related neural responses.

大多数以实验室为基础的人类药物强化研究往往侧重于检查单一物质的药理学作用，或在某些情况下检查其个别成分（例如尼古丁而不是烟草）。然而，由于许多药理学和心理因素可以影响人类的药物反应，从实验中往往不清楚观察到的药物效应在多大程度上可以直接归因于药物的药理学性质。例如，与尼古丁相关的强化指数可能受到以下因素的影响：烟草中是否存在其他精神活性成分、吸烟途径、输送速度以及心理过程，如相信自己摄入了尼古丁。因为这些因素中的每一个都可能单独或相互结合地影响各种强化措施，目前几乎没有明确的证据表明任何给定的影响都可以归因于单一因素。我的研究项目旨在确定各种药理学和非药理学因素如何影响药物强化的实验指标，使用尼古丁和烟草相关效应作为模型，以及确定这些不同因素涉及可分离的潜在神经过程的程度。为了做到这一点，我计划在一系列的实验中操纵各种产品（如香烟、雾化器、含片）的尼古丁含量和尼古丁含量期望值，以评估不同指标的药物相关强化。此外，在确定影响不同强化措施的特定药理学和心理因素之后，我计划使用功能磁共振成像来确定这些效果所涉及的神经过程。

Most laboratory-based studies of drug-related reinforcement in humans tend to focus on examining the pharmacological effects of single substances or, in some cases, of their individual constituents (e.g., nicotine rather than tobacco). However, because a number of pharmacological and psychological factors can impact drug responses in humans, it is often unclear from experiments to what extent an observed drug effect can be directly attributed to the pharmacological properties of the drug. For example, indices of nicotine-related reinforcement might be influenced by the presence or absence of other psychoactive constituents found in tobacco, the route by which it is taken, its rate of delivery, and by psychological processes such as the belief that one has ingested nicotine. Because each of these factors might impact various measures of reinforcement either independently or in combination with each other, there is currently little unequivocal evidence that any given effect can be attributed to a single factor. My program of research aims to determine how various pharmacological and non-pharmacological factors impact experimental indices of drug reinforcement, using nicotine and tobacco related effects as a model, as well as to determine the extent to which these different factors involve separable underlying neural processes. In order to do so, I plan to manipulate the nicotine contents and nicotine content expectations of various products (e.g. cigarettes, vaporizers, lozenges) in a series of experiments that will assess different indices drug-related reinforcement. In addition, following the identification of specific pharmacological and psychological factors that impact the different reinforcement measures, I plan to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural processes involved in those effects.