Abstract
The behavioral effects of intraventricularly (IVT) administered (-)-nicotine on food-maintained behavior were studied. Rats responded by pressing a lever under various fixed ratio (FR) schedules. Infusion of 5 μg of (-)-nicotine suppressed responding under an FR 16 schedule for 11–13 min. The effect was inversely related to the ratio size (16, 32, 64 responses per food delivery), but it was directly related to the infused (-)-nicotine dose (0.312, 0.624, 1.25, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 μg) when ratio size was held constant. Response rates following the (-)-nicotine-induced suppression were similar to those obtained prior to infusion. The behavioral effects of (-)-nicotine were blocked, in a dose-related manner, by the centrally acting nicotinic-cholinergic antagonist, mecamylamine (0.05–3.0 mg/kg) but not by the peripherally acting antagonist, hexamethonium (0.5–3.0 mg/kg), suggesting that the behavioral effects of IVT infusions of (-)-nicotine are mediated by central nicotinic-cholinergic receptors.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abood LG, Lowy K, Booth H (1979) Acute and chronic effects of nicotine in rats and evidence for a noncholinergic site of action. In: Krasnegor NA (ed) Cigarette smoking as a dependence process. National Institute on Drug Abuse Research Monograph 23, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Rockville, Maryland, pp 136–149
Abood LG, Lowy K, Tometsko A, Booth H (1978) Electrophysiological, behavioral, and chemical evidence for a noncholinergic, stereospecific site for nicotine in rat brain. J Neurosci Res 3:327–333
Ando L (1975) Profile of drug effects on temporally spaced responding in rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 3:883–841
Bovet D, Bovet-Nitti F (1965) Action of nicotine on conditioned behavior in naive and pretrained rats. In: von Euler (ed) Tobacco alkaloids and related compounds. Oxford, Pergamon, pp 125–143
Davis TRA, Kensler CJ, Dews PB (1973) Comparison of behavioral effects of nicotine, d-amphetamine, caffeine, and dimethylheptyltetrahydrocannabinol in squirrel monkeys. Psychopharmacologia 32:51–65
Hazell P, Peterson DW, Laverty R (1978) Inability of hexamethonium to block the discrimination stimulus (SD) property of nicotine. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 9:137–140
McIssac RJ (1962) The relationship between distribution and pharmacological activity of hexamethonium-N-methyl C14. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 135:335–343
Morrison CF, Goodyear JM, Sellers CM (1969) Antagonism by antimuscarinic and ganglion-blocking drugs of some of the behavioral effects of nicotine. Psychopharmacologia 15:341–350
Morrison CF, Stephenson JA (1969) Nicotine injections as the conditioned stimulus in discrimination learning. Psychopharmacologia 15:351–360
Pradhan SN (1970) Effects of nicotine on several schedules of behavior in rats. Arch Int Pharmacodyn Ther 183:127–138
Pradhan SN, Dutta SN (1970) Comparative effects of nicotine and amphetamine on timing behavior in rats. Neuropharmacology 9:9–16
Schecter MD, Rosecrans JA (1971) CNS effects of nicotine as the discriminative stimulus for the rat in a T-maze. Life Sci 10:821–832
Spealman RD, Goldberg SR, Gardner ML (1981) Behavioral effects of nicotine: Schedule-controlled responding by squirrel monkeys. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 216:484–491
Stitzer M, Morrison J, Domino EF (1970) Effects of nicotine on fixed-interval behavior and their modification by cholinergic antagonists. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 171:166–177
Taylor, P (1980) Ganglionic stimulating and blocking agents. In: Goodman-Gilman A, Goodman LS, Gilman A (eds) The pharmacological basis of therapeutics. 6th edition, MacMillan Publishing Co, New York, pp 217–218
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
DeNoble, V.J., Dragan, Y.P. & Carron, L. Behavioral effects of intraventricularly administered (-)-nicotine on fixed ratio schedules of food presentation in rats. Psychopharmacology 77, 317–321 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00432762
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00432762