Table 1.

Postmortem studies evaluating nAChR densities in smoker and non-smoker schizophrenia patients.

nAChRs	Imaging Technique	Comparison	Brain Regions	Effects	Study
α7 nAChRs	α-bungarotoxin (αBGT) autoradiography	SZ vs. normal	hippocampus, thalamus and cortex	reduced α7 nAChRs density	Court et al. 1999; Freedman et al., 1995 Guan et al. 1999
	Fluorescent in- situ hybridization	SZ vs. normal	dorsolateral PFC	overexpression of the chimeric gene for α7 nAChRs (CHRFAM7A)	Kunii et al, 2015
α4β2nAChRs	[3H]-epibatidine binding; [3H]cytisine binding	SZ smokers vs. normal smokers	cortex, striatum and hippocampus	reduced α4β2 nAChRs density	Breese et al., 2000; Durany et al., 2000
	PET (2-[18F]FA)	SZ smokers vs. normal smokers	thalamus	reduced β2- nAChR availability	Brašić et al. 2012
	PET ([123I]5-IA)	SZ smokers vs. SZ non- smokers	frontal cortex, parietal cortex, and striatum	higher β2-nAChR upregulation	Esterlis et al., 2014
		SZ smokers vs. normal smokers during early abstinence	frontal cortex, parietal cortex, and thalamus	lower β2-nAChR availability	D’Souza et al., 2012

Abbreviations: nAChR: nicotinic acetylcholine receptor; PFC, prefrontal cortex; SZ, schizophrenia.