Varenicline, an FDA approved treatment for smoking cessation which targets the nAChRs (Gonzales et al., 2006; Rollema et al., 2007), has recently been shown to reduce ethanol self-administration and heavy drinking in rats (Steensland et al., 2007), mice (Hendrickson et al., 2010; Kamens et al., 2010), and in humans (McKee et al., 2009). Although varenicline has been shown to modulate dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens following acute injections of ethanol and nicotine (Ericson et al., 2009), varenicline’s effect on nicotine-induced increases in ethanol self-administration is unknown.
