Progress in understanding the relationship between the pharmacological effects of nicotine and human tobacco dependence

The present paper is intended to serve as an introduction to the series of eight papers which follow in this issue of Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. A brief historical review of research that is at the root of much recent progress is provided in the present paper. In addition, we provide some data which illustrates the scope of tobacco-related research, world wide, in an effort to provide a perspective as to the vast amount of research activity that is currently in progress. Seven of the papers which follow were presented at a symposium held under the auspices of the American Society for Pharmacology and Therapeutics in 1986. Taken together, these papers are intended to provide new data and to review major areas of pharmacologic research relevant to the understanding and treatment of tobacco dependence. The topics include the behavioral and physiologic mechanisms by which the effects of nicotine are mediated, metabolic aspects of nicotine kinetics, and genetic determinants of responses to nicotine. The final paper is a discussion of the implications of these recent data for the pharmacologic treatment of tobacco dependence.