Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
Volume 15, Issue 9, Pages 1265-1274Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S1461145711001398
Keywords
Cue-induced reinstatement; drug discrimination; nicotine; progressive ratio schedule; varenicline
Funding
- Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH, DHHS, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- Pfizer
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Effects of varenicline (Champix), a nicotinic partial agonist, were evaluated on subjective effects of nicotine (drug discrimination), motivation for nicotine taking (progressive-ratio schedule of intravenous nicotine self-administration) and reinstatement (cue-induced reinstatement of previously extinguished nicotine-seeking behaviour). Effects on motor performance were assessed in rats trained to discriminate nicotine (0.4 mg/kg) from saline under a fixed-ratio (FR 10) schedule of food delivery and in rats trained to respond for food under a progressive-ratio schedule. At short pretreatment times (5-40 mm), varenicline produced full or high levels of partial generalization to nicotine's discriminative-stimulus effects and disrupted responding for food, while there were low levels of partial generalization and no disruption of responding for food at 2- or 4-h pretreatment times. Varenicline (1 and 3 mg/kg, 2-h pretreatment time) enhanced discrimination of low doses of nicotine and to a small extent decreased discrimination of the training dose of nicotine. It also dose-dependently decreased nicotine-taking behaviour, but had no effect on food-taking behaviour under progressive-ratio schedules. Finally, varenicline significantly reduced the ability of a nicotine-associated cue to reinstate extinguished nicotine-seeking behaviour. The ability of varenicline to reduce both nicotine-taking and nicotine-seeking behaviour can contribute to its relatively high efficacy in treating human smokers.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available