EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso will be conducting a study that could lead to improved treatments for women who are looking to stop smoking, according to a press release from UTEP.
UTEP says the study will be supported by a new $2.5 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will provide stipends to four graduate students throughout its five-year duration.
Principal investigator and professor at UTEP, Laura O’Dell, Ph.D., will lead the study into how “stress produced by nicotine withdrawal is intensified by variations in ovarian hormones in women,” UTEP said.
The study will examine a particular brain pathway that regulates certain behaviors and emotions that is believed to modulate withdrawal symptoms from chronic smoking, according to UTEP.
The result of this study could help explain the causes behind the greater anxiety experienced by women during abstinence from nicotine, according to UTEP.
“Despite how nicotine is consumed, this drug is known to have adverse effects on brain development and proper regulation of hormone levels in females, so we are addressing an important public health problem,” said O’Dell. “The results of this research are expected to contribute meaningfully to the development of more effective therapeutics for nicotine cessation for women, who are at greater risk for experiencing the adverse consequences of long-term nicotine use.”
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