Zebrafish as a model for addicted behaviors

KEDIKIAN, X.; BERNABEU, R.O

Huerta Grande, Pcia de Córdoba

Congreso; IIRCN Second Joint Meeting of the Argentine Society for Neurosciences and the Argentine Workshop in Neurosciences.; 2010

Nicotine is the principal psychoactive component present in tobacco and is responsible for it dependence and reinforcing properties that lead to addiction and high incidence of relapse among quitters. Changes in the level of expression of genes and proteins in certain brain areas, appear to play an important role in the molecular mechanisms underlying the long-term effects caused by chronic stimulation with nicotine. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are increasingly utilized in neurobehavioral research, because it has proved to be a reliable vertebrate model system. Extensive research has shown that there are homologies at genetic, neural, and endocrine levels between zebrafish and mammals. Addiction was studied mainly in rodents, using two experimental protocols: the conditioned place preference (CPP), and drug self-administration. Using a CPP paradigm, and knowing that zebrafish has a natural preference for dark environments, we used a biased procedure to evaluate nicotine-induced place preference. After conditioning, nicotine-treated fishes showed significant increases in time spent in the drug-paired side. This results shows that adult zebrafish is a good model to study the rewarding properties of nicotine and support the use of zebrafish as a model to study addictive behaviors using non-invasive pharmacology.