Researchers at Penn State University examined how flavored e-cigarettes may distinctly affect the brain compared to non-flavored ones.
For the study, researchers administered e-cigarette aerosols during brain scanning, giving low doses of nicotine to 9 female adult participants.
The study was released in Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.
“For our study, we were interested in looking first at, for smokers, how flavor might affect their response to nicotine e-cigarettes,” the findings detailed.
“We recruited smokers who had never used e-cigarettes before or were not regular e-cigarette users. What we were interested in is figuring out whether or not flavor changed how they perceived or how their brain responded to this e-cigarette use.”
“The findings suggest that fruity and dessert-flavored e-cigarettes may dampen the reward experience of aerosol inhalation for smokers who initiate e-cigarette use by inhibiting activation of dopaminergic brain circuits. These preliminary findings may have implications for understanding how regulations on flavored e-cigarettes might impact their use as cessation aids,” the study concluded.
