NICOTINE-INDUCED CONDITIONING PLACE PREFERENCE IN LOW AND HIGH NICOTINE-RESPONDER RATS

PASTOR, VERONICA; ANDRES, MARIA ESTELA; BERNABEU, RAMON OSCAR

Huerta Grande, Pcia de Cordoba, Argentina

Congreso; IIRCN Second Joint Meeting of the Argentine Society for Neuroscience (SAN) and the Argentine Workshop in Neurosciences (TAN); 2010

Horizontal locomotor activity in rats is a behavioral index of nicotine effect on the brain. Rats with high locomotor responses to an acute injection of nicotine are more prone to self-administer the drug than low responders, demonstrating an increase of the motivational effect of nicotine by a preexposure. We designed the present study to determine if individual differences in initial responsiveness to nicotine have any contribution on the rewarding properties of the drug. We evaluated locomotor response to a single injection of nicotine in adolescent Sprague-Dawley rats. Animals were classified in high (HR) or low (LR) nicotine responders based on whether their locomotor responses were above or below the median activity level of the subject sample. Then, we trained the animals in a Conditioned-place preference (CPP) paradigm, in order to evaluate nicotine rewarding properties in these two behavioral groups. Our results indicate that the animals differed in their locomotor response to a single injection of nicotine, with some exhibiting a grater response than others. However, the animals classified as HR and LR developed CPP with the same strength and efficiency, suggesting that a nicotine preconditioning session have no effect on the posterior rewarding properties of the drug.