The effect of smoking nicotine tobacco versus smoking deprivation on motion sickness

BACKGROUND: The experienced smoker maintains adequate nicotine levels by 'puff-by-puff self-control' which also avoids symptomatic nauseating effects of nicotine overdose. It is postulated that there is a varying 'dynamic threshold for nausea' into which motion sickness susceptibility provides an objective toxin-free probe. Hypotheses were that: (i) nicotine promotes motion sickness whereas deprivation protects; and (ii) pleasurable effects of nicotine protect against motion sickness whereas adverse effects of withdrawal have the opposite effect. METHODS: Twenty-six healthy habitual cigarette smokers (mean±SD) 15.3±7.6cigs/day, were exposed to a provocative cross-coupled (coriolis) motion on a turntable, with sequences of 8 head movements every 30s. This continued to the point of moderate nausea. Subjects were tested after either ad-lib normal smoking (SMOKE) or after overnight deprivation (DEPRIV), according to a repeated measures design counter-balanced for order with 1-week interval between tests. RESULTS: Deprivation from recent smoking was confirmed by objective measures: exhaled carbon monoxide CO was lower (P<0.001) for DEPRIV (8.5±5.6ppm) versus SMOKE (16.0±6.3ppm); resting heart rate was lower (P<0.001) for DEPRIV (67.9±8.4bpm) versus SMOKE (74.3±9.5bpm). Mean±SD sequences of head movements tolerated to achieve moderate nausea were more (P=0.014) for DEPRIV (21.3±9.9) versus SMOKE (18.3±8.5). DISCUSSION: Tolerance to motion sickness was aided by short-term smoking deprivation, supporting Hypothesis (i) but not Hypothesis (ii). The effect was was approximately equivalent to half of the effect of an anti-motion sickness drug. Temporary nicotine withdrawal peri-operatively may explain why smokers have reduced risk for postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV).

The Asia Minor Greek adpositional cycle: a tale of multiple causation

This paper examines the interplay of language-internal continuity and external influence in the cyclical development of the Asia Minor Greek adpositional system. The Modern Greek dialects of Asia Minor inherited an adpositional system of the Late Medieval Greek type whereby secondary adpositions regularly combined with primary adpositions to encode spatial region. Secondary adpositions could originally precede simple adpositions ([PREPOSITION + PREPOSITION + NPACC]) or follow the adpositional complement ([PREPOSITION + NPACC + POSTPOSITION]). Asia Minor Greek replicated the structure of Ottoman Turkish postpositional phrases to resolve this variability, fixing the position of secondary adpositions after the complement and thus developing circumpositions of the type [PREPOSITION + NPACC + POSTPOSITION]. Later, some varieties dropped the primary preposition SE from circumpositional phrases, leaving (secondary) postpositions as the only overt relator ([NPACC + POSTPOSITION]) in some environments. In addition, a number of Turkish postpositions were borrowed wholesale, thus enriching the Greek adpositional inventory.