Smoke like a fish

BERNABEU R

Huerta Grande, Cordoba

Congreso; XXVIII CONGRESO ANUAL DE LA SOCIEDAD ARGENTINA DE INVESTIGACION EN NEUROCIENCIAS; 2013

Smoke like a fishRamon BernabeuDepartamento de Fuisiologia, Facultad de Medicina, UBArbernabeu@fmed.uba.ar________________________________________________________One study using zebrafish have demonstrated that nicotine induces a unbiasedConditioned place preference (CPP). Because in rodents biased procedures wassuggested to be more effective for nicotine, we decided to setup a biased CPP taskfor zebrafish. Our results demonstrated that zebrafish exhibited putative nicotinebiased CPP to an initially aversive compartment (nicotine-paired group). Acounterbalanced nicotine control group provided evidence that the preferenceshift in the nicotine-paired group was not due to a reduction of aversion for thatcompartment. Zebrafish nicotine?s preference was corroborated by behavioralanalysis of several indicators of drug preference, such as time spent and number ofentries to the drug paired side, and distance traveled. The results provided strongevidence that zebrafish develop a preference for nicotine, although the drug wasadministrated in an aversive place for the fish. The behavioral results were furthersupported by molecular studies. Real-time PCR analysis depicted a significantincrease in the expression of 7 and 6 but not 4 and 2 subunits of the nicotinicreceptor in nicotine-paired zebrafish brains. Moreover, CREB phosphorylation, anindicator of neural activity, accompanied the acquisition of nicotine-CPP. Theresults suggested that zebrafish exposed to nicotine in an unfriendly environmentcan develop a preference for that initially aversive place, which is likely due to therewarding effect of nicotine.