INTRODUCTION Persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD) in women is associated with feelings of persistent, spontaneous, intrusive, unrelenting, and unwanted physical arousal in the absence of conscious thoughts of sexual desire or sexual interest. AIM To report the case of a 49-year-old woman with lifelong PGAD who was recently prescribed varenicline for smoking cessation and who subsequentl...

On 11 May 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved varenicline (Chantix, Champix) for use in smoking cessation; it was the first oral non-nicotine treatment licensed by the FDA since bupropion in 1997 [1]. However, it was not long before concernswere raised about the neuropsychiatric safety of the medicine. Anecdotal reports from popular press and internet sites, in addition to ...

Partial agonist therapies for the treatment of nicotine addiction and dependence depend on both agonistic and antagonistic effects of the ligands, and side effects associated with other nAChRs greatly limit the efficacy of nicotinic partial agonists. We evaluated the in vitro pharmacological properties of four partial agonists, two current smoking cessation drugs, varenicline and cytisine, and ...

Brazil faces a knowledge gap concerning the factors associated with smoking patterns. In their large survey, Opaleye et al. report that approximately 16% of the 7,921 interviewees reported daily use of cigarettes, of whom 65% stated a wish to reduce or quit smoking. Varenicline, a partial agonist of the a4b2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, is considered one of the first-line treatments for to...

Varenicline has shown promise for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD); however, not everyone will respond to varenicline. Machine-learning methods are well suited identify treatment responders. In the present study, we examined data from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Clinical Intervention Group multisite clinical trial of varenicline using two machine-learning methods. Base...

Extensive evidence indicates that varenicline reduces nicotine craving and withdrawal symptoms by modulating dopaminergic function at α4β2* nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) (the asterisk indicates the possible presence of other nicotinic subunits in the receptor complex). More recent data suggest that α6β2* nAChRs also regulate dopamine release and mediate nicotine reinforcement. The ...

The interoceptive stimulus effects of nicotine acquire control over behavior. This observation, among others, suggests that the stimulus effects of nicotine are important in the development and tenacity of tobacco dependence. Despite this importance, there has been little research examining whether non-reinforced presentations (extinction) of a ligand that share stimulus effects of nicotine wil...

IMPORTANCE Given the actions of varenicline tartrate and bupropion hydrochloride sustained-release (SR) on neurobiological targets related to affect and reward, it is thought that the modulation of nicotine withdrawal symptoms may contribute to their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE To assess the relative efficacy of varenicline and bupropion SR plus intensive counseling on smoking cessation and emot...

OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of maintenance pharmacotherapy on sustained abstinence rates between recently abstinent smokers with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (SBD) and general population smokers without psychiatric illness. METHOD We performed a person-level, pooled analysis of two randomized controlled trials of maintenance varenicline, conducted in adult smokers with SBD and gener...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether varenicline, a recently licensed smoking cessation product, is associated with an increased risk of suicide and suicidal behaviour compared with alternative treatments bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy. DESIGN Cohort study nested within the General Practice Research Database. SETTING Primary care in the United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS 80,660 men and wo...