Evaluation of drug seeking behaviour on nicotine place preference in zebrafish

ROCCO, LEANDRO C.; PISERA FUSTER, ANTONELLA; FAILLACE, MARIA PAULA ; BERNABEU, RAMÓN O.

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Reunión Anual de Sociedades de Biociencias 2022 (SAIC; SAI-FAIC; SAFIS); 2022

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clìnica (SAIC), Sociedad Argentina de Fisiología (SAFIS) y Sociedad Argentina de Inmunologia (SAI) y FAIC (Congreso Franco-Argentino de Inmunología)

Seeking of drugs is commonly evaluated in a specific environmentfor assessing drug preference. However, cognitive strategies involved in drugseeking are mostly unknown. To assess the strength of environmental cues thatcan be associated with nicotine in the zebrafish brain reward circuitry, wehave designed herein a modified conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm.This task was devised to identify salient environmental cues relevant forstrong nicotine–environment association and drug seeking induction. During testsessions, background colors of the CPP tank chambers were shifted andpreference for colors associated to nicotine was assessed. We have comparedseveral tank designs and different compartment colors. Our findings indicatedthat zebrafish seeking behavior was strongly dependent on compartment colorshades. Combination of red and yellow environments, which were preferred andavoided compartments, respectively, was the most effective design presentingthe highest CPP-score. Interestingly, animals that stayed for longer periods inthe environment conditioned to nicotine during a first testing interval werealso able to follow the background color shade conditioned to nicotine to theother compartment immediately after background colors were relocated betweencompartments. During a second testing period, zebrafish also stayed for longerperiods in the colored compartment paired to nicotine during conditioning.These findings suggest that under salient environmental conditions, zebrafishvoluntarily followed a shifting visual cue previously associated with nicotinedelivery. Furthermore, our findings indicate that zebrafish exhibit spatialassociative learning and memory, which generates a repertoire of conspicuouslocomotor behaviors induced by nicotine preference in the CPP task.