Simple drug treatment may prevent nicotine-induced S...(in. The result is like trying to d...)

"The result is like trying to drive your car with the parking brake on. You might go a little bit, but the brakes hold you back," explains Buttigieg. "In this case, the adrenal glands do not release catecholamines during hypoxia for example during birth or a self-asphyxiation episodeoften resulting in death."

But when researchers administered the drug glibenclamide in laboratory rats, which override the brake protein, the adrenal glands were able to respond to oxygen deprivation, therefore reversing the lethality of hypoxia.

"Our initial goal was really to understand how the nervous system regulates oxygen sensitivity of cells in the adrenal gland at a basic research level," says Colin Nurse, academic advisor on the study and a professor in the department of Biology. "We speculated that chemicals released from nerves might interact with adrenal cells and cause them to lose oxygen sensitivity. It turns out that nicotine mimics the effects of one of these chemicals, thereby allowing us to test the idea. The present study was significant in that it led to a mechanistic understanding of how nicotine works in this context."

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