INVESTIGADORES
BERNABEU Ramon Oscar
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Nicotine preference in Zebrafish: Behavioral and Molecular Analysis.
Autor/es:
XIMENA KEDIKIAN, MARIA PAULA FAILLACE AND RAMON BERNABEU
Reunión:
Workshop; Latin American Zebrafish Network 3rd meeting; 2014
Resumen:
Studies using mice and rats have demonstrated that nicotine induces
a conditioned place preference (CPP), with more effective results obtained by
using biased procedures. Zebrafish have also been used as a model system to
identify factors influencing nicotine-associated reward by using an unbiased
design. Here, we report that zebrafish exhibited putative nicotine biased CPP
to an initially aversive compartment (nicotine-paired group). A counterbalanced
nicotine-exposed control group did not show a significant preference shift,
providing evidence that the preference shift in the nicotine-paired group was
not due to a reduction of aversion for this compartment. Zebrafish preference
was corroborated by behavioral analysis of several indicators of drug
preference, such as time spent in the drug-paired side, number of entries to
the drug paired side, and distance traveled. These results provided strong
evidence that zebrafish may actually develop a preference for nicotine,
although the drug was administrated in an aversive place for the fish, which
was further supported by molecular studies. Reverse transcription-quantitative
real-time PCR analysis depicted a significant increase in the expression of a7
and a6 but not a4 and b2 subunits of the nicotinic receptor in nicotine-paired
zebrafish brains. In contrast, zebrafish brains from the counterbalanced
nicotine group showed no significant changes. Moreover, CREB phosphorylation,
an indicator of neural activity, accompanied the acquisition of nicotine-CPP.
Our studies offered an incremental value to the drug addiction field, because
they further describe behavioral features of CPP to nicotine in zebrafish. The
results suggested that zebrafish exposed to nicotine in an unfriendly
environment can develop a preference for that initially aversive place, which
is likely due to the rewarding effect of nicotine. Therefore, this model can be
used to screen exogenous and endogenous molecules involved in
nicotine-associated reward in vertebrates.