A while ago (over a year) I gave a talk Charles Drew University, a medical school in Los Angeles. Most of the data has now been published in the Journal of Neuroscience (link here). The quick summary of my findings are that menthol, the most common flavor additive in tobacco products (e.g., cigarettes) by itself causes changes in regions of the brain that effect reward-related behavior (i.e., addiction). More to come, my research group is moving on to studying menthol’s effect on nicotine actions in the brain. By the way, nicotine is the primary addictive component in tobacco products (this includes e-cigarettes).