Nicotine discrimination

Perkins KA (1995) Individual variabUity in responses to nicotine. Behav Genet 25(2) 119-132 Perkins KA (1999) Nicotine discrimination in men and women. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 64(2) 295-299... 

Recognising Nicotine The Neurobiological Basis of Nicotine Discrimination... 

F%. 1 (a) Dose-response curve from rats trained to discriminate between 0.2 mg kg of nicotine and saline. Data are from 13 rats, each tested at least three times at each dose, (b) Block of nicotine (0.2 mg kg ) discrimination by the centrally active nicotinic antagonist mecamylamine (0.25 mg kg ) but not by chlorisondamine at a 0.025 mg kg dose that blocks peripheral nicotinic choUnoceptors but does not penetrate into the CNS (Sal, Saline Nic, Nicotine Csd, Chlorisondamine Mec, Mecamylamine). Chlorisondamine blocks nicotine discrimination when injected intra-cerebroventricularly (Kumar et al. 1987, data not shown). Data shown are for the number of sessions that began with selection of the nicotine-appropriate lever expressed as a percentage of the total number of sessions. Redrawn with permission from Tables 1 and 2 in Morrison CF, Stephenson JA. Nicotine injections as the conditioned stimulus in discrimination learning (1969), Copyright Springer... 

Nicotine discrimination studies have been conducted in humans, squirrel monkeys, rats and mice. However only in humans as there been any systematic approach to examine whether there are sex differences in discriminative effects. Female smokers... 

The possible effects of different types and magnitudes of reinforcer on nicotine discrimination have not been studied directly although several types have been used. Typically 45 mg food pellets are used for rats and 25 mg pellets for mice although some groups have used sweetened milk as a liquid reinforcer. However, water reinforcers following restricted access to water could also support nicotine discrimination learning (e.g. Morrison and Stephenson 1969 Sanchez et al. 1998 Zaniewska et al. 2006). Varying restricted access to food has not been shown to... 

Cytisine and varenicline are partial agonists with activity at the o4p2 binding site. In tests of nicotine discrimination, pretreatment with cytisine has no... 

Fig. 5 Dose-response curves for discriminative stimulus effects of nicotine in wild-type (filled circle) and knockout (open circle) mice trained with nicotine (0.8mg kg ), (a) shows results for 32 null mutant and control mice from Shoaib et al, (2002) whereas (b) shows corresponding results for a nuU mutants and their wild-type controls from Stolerman et al, 2004, Discriminative responding on the drug-appropriate lever is expressed as a percentage of the total numbers of responses on both levers. All data shown as means s,e,m, from 5-min extinction tests (n = 8-12). Figure 4a was published in Shoaib et al. (2002) The role of nicotinic receptor beta-2 subunits in nicotine discrimination and conditioned taste aversion. Copyright Elsevier Fig, 4b was published in Stolerman et al, (2004), The role of nicotinic receptor alpha subunits in nicotine discrimination. Copyright Elsevier...

Investigations on the role of dopamine in nicotine discrimination were triggered by reports that nicotine was able to induce dopamine release both in vitro... 

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