A programmable smoke delivery device for PET imaging with cigarettes containing C-nicotine.

INTRODUCTION

PET imaging with C-nicotine-loaded cigarettes is a valuable tool to directly assess fast nicotine kinetics and its neuropharmacological role in tobacco dependence. To eliminate variations among puffs inhaled by subjects, this work aimed to develop a programmable smoke delivery device (SDD) to produce highly reproducible and adjustable puffs of cigarette smoke for PET experiments.

NEW METHOD

The SDD was built around a programmable syringe pump as a smoking machine to draw a puff of smoke from a C-nicotine-loaded cigarette and make it available for a subject to take the smoke into the mouth and then inhale it during PET data acquisition. Brain nicotine time activity curves and total body absorbed C-nicotine doses (TAD) were measured in smokers who inhaled a single puff of smoke via the SDD from a C-nicotine-loaded cigarette.

RESULTS

Nearly identical brain nicotine kinetics were observed between participants who inhaled a puff of smoke through the SDD and those who inhaled directly from a cigarette.

COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS

This new device minimizes puff variations that exist with earlier smoke delivery apparatuses which could introduce confounding factors.

CONCLUSIONS

The SDD is effective in delivering C-nicotine from the study cigarettes. Despite a 2-s increase in aging of smoke delivered through the SDD versus smoke taken directly from a cigarette, the difference in brain nicotine kinetics after C-nicotine delivery with and without use of the SDD is negligible. This refined device may be useful for future research on the deposition and pharmacokinetics of nicotine inhaled with tobacco smoke.