Shreya Bandi
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Emily Jutkiewicz
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Pharmacology / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 3 – 1:40pm – 2:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Shreya Bandi, Lauren Rysztak, Emily Jutkiewicz
Presenter: 17
Abstract
Environmental stimuli that have been associated with cocaine taking behavior can elicit feelings of craving, contributing to relapse. Prior studies have shown that nicotine, a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist and commonly abused drug in humans, induces a significant increase in cocaine cue-seeking behavior after cocaine self-administration in rats. In our study, we seek to understand how nicotine administration can alter the behavior of animals responding to earn presentations of cocaine-paired cues in a robust behavioral test of conditioned reinforcement. We hypothesized that pretreatments of nicotine would increase the behavioral response to earn presentations of cocaine-paired cues. To test this, we used the New Response Acquisition procedure. In the first phase, Pavlovian Conditioning, five cocaine infusions (320 mg/gk/inf) are delivered either simultaneously with a light/tone cue (Paired) or separately (Unpaired). In the second phase (Acquisition), two nose pokes are introduced into the chamber (active and inactive) and subjects can make responses on the active nose poke to earn presentations of the light/tone stimulus (no cocaine is available). On the fourth day of Acquisition, subjects were given drug pretreatments (vehicle; nicotine; 0.03 or 0.3 mg/kg sc; or scopolamine (muscarinic antagonist) 0.032 mg/kg sc). Overall, Paired rats make significantly more active nose pokes than inactive during Acquisition as well as more active nose pokes than Unpaired rats. With nicotine pretreatments, the Paired group significantly decreased responding on the active nose pokes to earn cocaine-paired cues, contrary to our hypothesis. These data suggest that the cholinergic may be in part involved in mediating the behavior to earn presentations of cocaine-paired cues.
Biomedical Sciences, Interdisciplinary, Natural/Life Sciences
