Gallinat J, Schubert F
Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany.
Pharmacopsychiatry. 2007 Mar;40(2):64-7. doi: 10.1055/s-2007-970144.
Increasing evidence indicates a crucial role of glutamate in the brain reward system and nicotine addiction. Because the pertinent models involve frontal and hippocampal glutamatergic projections, our goal was to investigate cerebral glutamate concentrations in healthy subjects with different smoking behavior.
Glutamate was measured with proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 3 tesla in the left hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in 13 chronic tobacco smokers, 9 former smokers, and 16 never-smokers using a dedicated quantification method.
Glutamate concentrations did not differ between groups in either voxel ( F=1.151, DF=2, P=0.340). No significant correlations between glutamate concentrations and age of smoking onset, daily cigarette consumption, or lifetime exposure to tobacco smoke (pack-years) were observed.
Our findings do not support a crucial role of cingulate or hippocampal glutamate concentration in chronic tobacco consumption. Besides group differences potentially gone unnoticed due to the limited sample size, however, these results cannot rule out dysfunctional glutamatergic neurotransmission or glutamate dysfunctions in other brain regions of smokers.
越来越多的证据表明谷氨酸在大脑奖赏系统和尼古丁成瘾中起关键作用。由于相关模型涉及额叶和海马的谷氨酸能投射，我们的目标是研究不同吸烟行为的健康受试者大脑中的谷氨酸浓度。
使用专用定量方法，在3特斯拉磁场下，通过质子磁共振波谱对13名慢性吸烟者、9名既往吸烟者和16名从不吸烟者的左侧海马和前扣带回皮质（ACC）中的谷氨酸进行测量。
两组在任一体素中的谷氨酸浓度均无差异（F=1.151，自由度=2，P=0.340）。未观察到谷氨酸浓度与吸烟起始年龄、每日卷烟消费量或终生烟草烟雾暴露量（包年数）之间存在显著相关性。
我们的研究结果不支持扣带回或海马谷氨酸浓度在慢性烟草消费中起关键作用。然而，除了由于样本量有限可能未被注意到的组间差异外，这些结果不能排除吸烟者其他脑区谷氨酸能神经传递功能失调或谷氨酸功能异常。
