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CENTURY
Yale University
School of Medicine
SAC-203
Connecticut
Mental Health Center
34 Park Street
New Haven, CT 06519

Phone:
203-974-7591

Fax:
203-974-7606

E-mail:
infocentury@yale.edu

CENTURY/TTURC Press Release

The research of Dr. Tony George and his colleagues was featured in an article in the Feb. 1, 2006 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The Perspective, “Link Between Smoking and Mental Illness May Lead to Treatments,” by JAMA senior staff writer Bridget M. Kuehn, highlighted Dr. George’s work relating to how nicotine may sometimes improve cognitive deficits associated with mental illnesses like schizophrenia. The article cited studies done by Dr. George’s team led by Dr. Kristi Sacco and  published in The Journal of Psychopharmacology and The Archives of General Psychiatry, in 2005.

The JAMA article noted that Dr. George does not think that smoking is a good way for people with mental illnesses to treat some of their symptoms. Even though some smokers may be self-medicating cognitive deficits and other clinical symptoms with nicotine, he pointed out that cigarettes have many other harmful ingredients and that nicotine’s effects sometimes lessen over time. Instead, he said, the goal is to find drugs that selectively target nicotinic receptors without the harmful effects of cigarettes.

“Over the next few years, we should see a lot of developments in this area,” he said.

Dr. George is an associate professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and Director of the Program for Research in Smokers with Mental Illness (PRISM) at Connecticut Mental Health Center, and is a researcher with the Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Use Research at Yale and the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center at Yale.

Those with access to a JAMA subscription can access the article at the JAMA site.