ZACCARELLI-MAGALHAES, Julia; CAMARGO, Esther Lopes Ricci Adari    SPINOSA, Helenice de Souza. Varenicline: a review of the perspective of health promotion. []. , 16, 2, pp.55-67. ISSN 1519-0307.  https://doi.org/10.5935/1809-4139.20160007.

Varenicline is a synthetic chemical produced from the alkaloid cytisine obtained from the plant Cytisus Laburnum L.; it is used for the treatment of smoking and has been widely studied as a drug for the treatment of dependence on various drugs due to its modulation in nicotinic cholinergic receptors of the central nervous system. Taking into consideration that there is a tendency to expand the clinical use of varenicline and that there are few studies related to possible behavioral, cognitive and motor effects, the objectives of this work were to review in the literature the following topics about varenicline: clinical use, mechanism of action and receptors, pharmacokinetics, side effects, possible addiction to drugs, memory and learning. For that a bibliographic survey was carried out in journals obtained from the PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. In the studies of several authors, varenicline has been shown to have a beneficial effect on its users, with a higher rate of smoking cessation than other methods. According to the manufacturer laboratory the side effects presented are possibly due to nicotine withdrawal and not to the effect of the drug itself; yet this drug can be considered safe because of its low potential for abuse.

: varenicline; cholinergic; smoking; drug addiction; neuromodulator.

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