The addictive power of smoking may lie not only in tobacco's nicotine content but also in the way it enhances other experiences, according to new research.

Science Daily reported Sept. 5 that researcher Matthew Palmatier of Kansas State University suggests that the reinforcing effect of nicotine on recurring behavioral events adds to the difficulty smokers experience when trying to quit.

"If you think about where people smoke or who they smoke with, you realize that it occurs in very specific places, often with a specific group of people," Palmatier said. The association of nicotine with a pleasurable moment gives the experience "that extra satisfaction from things you normally enjoy," he added.

Researchers studying rats that self-administered doses of nicotine to manipulate a laboratory light observed that the rats were as interested in the control of the environment as they were in the nicotine.

Palmatier suggests that the act of smoking isn't only an effort to attain a pleasurable drug state, but that people "may be smoking in order to regulate their mood, and that effect could make nicotine more addictive than other drugs."

Under a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Palmatier is working to understand the psychological factors that contribute to smoking addiction and ways to improve smoking treatment programs. A paper on this research was published in the August 2008 issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.