Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 21, 2026

Murine Drinking Models in the Development of Pharmacotherapies for Alcoholism: Drinking in the Dark and Two-bottle Choice
Published on: January 7, 2019
The Gateway Hypothesis of substance abuse: developmental, biological and societal perspectives
1Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA.
Unlabelled:
The Gateway Hypothesis describes how tobacco or alcohol use precedes marijuana and other illicit drug use. We review the epidemiological data, explore the underlying molecular mechanisms in mice and discuss the societal implications of the hypothesis, including the use of e-cigarettes by young people.
Conclusion:
Our mouse model identifies biological processes underlying the hypothesis, showing that nicotine is a gateway drug that exerts a priming effect on cocaine through increased global acetylation in the striatum.
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