Nicotine, Striatum, and Reward

The ability to resist an immediate, smaller reward to get a larger, delayed reward is impaired in current smokers and is thought to reflect greater impulsivity that leads to relapse to cigarette smoking. Although studies have shown that this type of delay discounting is greater in abstinent smokers than in those who have smoked just before the test , it is not clear what role smoking status and acute effects of nicotine play on the brain circuits that are important for this reward processing. Activity of the dopamine neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and its target regions including the nucleus accumbens (NAc), striatum, and prefrontal cortical regions such as the anterior cingulate are important in delay discounting, predicting reward magnitude, decision making, and stimulus-rew...

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