Other Compounds From Tobacco With Potential Impact on Neurodegenerative Diseases

In the context of its pharmacological actions, nicotine is the most studied tobacco smoke constituent. Nonetheless, nicotine is not the only constituent of tobacco leaf and cigarette smoke that displays pharmacological activity. Given the complexity of data from clinical studies on nicotine and epidemiological data on smoking and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, it is possible that nicotine exerts its effects together with other bioactive, possibly inhalable, smoke constituents that should be studied separately, i.e. when decoupled from tobacco smoke and the overall harmful effects of smoking. This section describes some tobacco/smoke compounds for which neuronal effects have been reported.