Abstract
Nicotine exerts beneficial effects on various neurological and psychiatric pathologies, yet its effects on cognitive performance remain unclear. Mice lacking the beta2 subunit of the nicotinic receptor (β2−/−) show characteristic deficits in executive functions and are suggested as reliable animal models for some specific endophenotypes of human pathologies, notably ADHD. We use β2−/− and their controls to investigate the consequences of chronic nicotine exposure on cognitive behaviour. We show that in control mice, this treatment elicits somewhat slight effects, particularly affecting nocturnal activity and self-grooming. By contrast, in β2−/− mice, chronic nicotine treatment had restorative effects on exploratory behaviour in the open-field and affected rearing, but did not modify motor functions. We confirmed that β2−/− mice exhibit impaired exploratory and social behaviour, and further demonstrated their nocturnal hyperactivity. These data support the proposal that β2−/− mice represent a relevant model for cognitive disorders in humans and that nicotine administered chronically at low dose may relieve some of these.
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Abbreviations
- ACh:
-
Acetylcholine
- ADHD:
-
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- nAChR:
-
Acetylcholine nicotinic receptor
- β2+/+ mice:
-
Control mice
- β2−/− mice:
-
Mice deleted for the beta2 subunit of the nicotinic receptor
- β2*nAChR:
-
Acetylcholine nicotinic receptor containing the subunit β2
- DAT:
-
Dopamine transporter
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS. MB was supported by a PhD grant from the Letten F. Saugstad Foundation and the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale. SS was supported by a post-doc grant from the “Association pour la Recherche sur les Nicotianés”.
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Besson, M., Suarez, S., Cormier, A. et al. Chronic Nicotine Exposure has Dissociable Behavioural Effects on Control and Beta2−/− Mice. Behav Genet 38, 503–514 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-008-9216-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-008-9216-1