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Last month I was half-way listening to the news when I came to full attention as I thought I heard the newsreader say that a new study found that nicotine increased dopamine in the brain. Egad!! I said to my husband, you may have to take up smoking for the first time in your life if this is true. Well, Neal can relax and our lungs are safe. A search on the net turned up the article behind that shocking news item. As often happens when the media reports on a scientific study, information was a bit out of focus. Both the full text (a wordy 63k) and a short summary are available online at http://www.amsci.org/amsci/Articles/96Articles/Blum.html Blum, Kenneth, et al. Reward Deficiency Syndrome: American Scientist, March-April, 1996. This is a truly fascinating article. The authors have taken documented information about brain chemistry and new genetic insights and have based what they refer to as "Reward Deprivation Syndrome" on a genetic shortage of dopamine D2 receptor sites in the area of the brain that produces feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. The authors believe that a number of addictions and behavior problems are related to this deficiency of dopamine receptor sites. They say that problems like alcoholism, craving for nicotine, or compulsive overeating are due to this lack.(Even compulsive gambling is included.) Substances like alcohol and nicotine stimulate dopamine production. This leads to feelings of comfort and pleasure in the brain's pleasure centers. This is a pretty rough, but, I hope, not too inaccurate summary. It seems obvious to me that people with PD would get little or no benefit from any substance that stimulates dopamine release in the brain. Our problem is the increasing loss of that capacity. We have to get our dopamine the hard way, from Sinemet. Thank goodness we won't have to start adding nicotine to the long list of drugs we currently deal with. Martha CG for Neal(76/11) [log in to unmask]