Exposure to nicotine enhances acquisition of ethanol drinking by laboratory rats in a limited access paradigm

Observations in humans suggest that the initial use of tobacco occurs in close temporal proximity to experimentation with alcohol. There have been relatively few research reports, however, examining possible interactions between these two agents. The present experiments examined the effect of nicoti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychopharmacologia 1999-03, Vol.142 (4), p.408-412
Main Authors: SMITH, B. R, HORAN, J. T, GASKIN, S, AMIT, Z
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acetylcholine receptors
Alcohol Drinking
Alcoholism and acute alcohol poisoning
Analysis of Variance
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Drinking behavior
Ethanol
Laboratory animals
Male
Mecamylamine
Mecamylamine - pharmacology
Medical sciences
Nicotine
Nicotine - pharmacology
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Receptors, Nicotinic - drug effects
Receptors, Nicotinic - physiology
Toxicology
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Summary:Observations in humans suggest that the initial use of tobacco occurs in close temporal proximity to experimentation with alcohol. There have been relatively few research reports, however, examining possible interactions between these two agents. The present experiments examined the effect of nicotine exposure on the acquisition of ethanol drinking behavior in a limited access procedure. In experiment 1, rats were presented with 1-h access to ethanol solutions of increasing concentration for a period of 20 days. Subcutaneous injections of nicotine (0.6 or 1.2 mg/kg salt) or vehicle were administered 30 min prior to each ethanol presentation. Experiment 2 used a similar method, but rats were presented with water along with ethanol during the 1-h test session. Mecamylamine, a nicotinic receptor antagonist, was administered 30 min prior to the nicotine treatment. Nicotine was seen to produce a dose-dependent increase in ethanol drinking behavior which commenced at the 5% ethanol concentration and continued at 8% and again at 10%. In the second experiment, mecamylamine was observed to block completely the nicotine-induced increase in ethanol drinking behavior. The findings suggest that exposure to nicotine can facilitate the acquisition of ethanol drinking behavior in naive rats and that this effect is mediated by nicotine's interaction at the nicotinic-cholinergic receptor.
ISSN:0033-3158
1432-2072
DOI:10.1007/s002130050906