Acute nicotine induces anxiety and disrupts temporal pattern organization of rat exploratory behavior in hole-board: a potential role for the lateral habenula

作者：Casarrubea Maurizio^*; Davies Caitlin; Faulisi Fabiana; Pierucci Massimo; Colangeli Roberto; Partridge Lucy; Chambers Stephanie; Cassar Daniel; Valentino Mario; Muscat Richard; Benigno Arcangelo; Crescimanno Giuseppe; Di Giovanni Giuseppe

来源：Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 2015, 9: 197.

DOI：10.3389/fncel.2015.00197

• anxiety
• serotonin
• dopamine
• lateral habenula
• nicotine
• T-pattern analysis

Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs of abuse. Tobacco smoking is a major cause of many health problems, and is the first preventable cause of death worldwide. Several findings show that nicotine exerts significant aversive as well as the well-known rewarding motivational effects. Less certain is the anatomical substrate that mediates or enables nicotine aversion. Here, we show that acute nicotine induces anxiogenic-like effects in rats at the doses investigated (0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 mg/kg, i.p.), as measured by the hole-board apparatus and manifested in behaviors such as decreased rearing and head-dipping and increased grooming. No changes in locomotor behavior were observed at any of the nicotine doses given. T-pattern analysis of the behavioral outcomes revealed a drastic reduction and disruption of complex behavioral patterns induced by all three nicotine doses, with the maximum effect for 1 mg/kg. Lesion of the lateral habenula (LHb) induced hyperlocomotion and, strikingly, reversed the nicotineinduced anxiety obtained at 1 mg/kg to an anxiolytic-like effect, as shown by T-pattern analysis. We suggest that the LHb is critically involved in emotional behavior states and in nicotine-induced anxiety, most likely through modulation of monoaminergic nuclei.

• 出版日期2015-6-1