Bidirectional relationship between attentional deficits and escalation of nicotine intake in male rats

Vouillac-Mendoza C(1), Ahmed SH(1), Guillem K(2).

Author information:
(1)Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives Et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, CNRS UMR
5287, Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment BBS – 2Ème Étage, 2, Rue du Dr Hoffmann
Martinot, 33000, Bordeaux, France.
(2)Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives Et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, CNRS UMR
5287, Université de Bordeaux, Bâtiment BBS – 2Ème Étage, 2, Rue du Dr Hoffmann
Martinot, 33000, Bordeaux, France. .

RATIONALE: People with tobacco addiction have deficits in cognition, in
particular deficits in attention. It is not clear however, whether deficits are
a cause or a consequence, or both, of chronic nicotine use. Here we set out a
series of experiments in rats to address this question and, more specifically,
to assess the effects of exposure to and withdrawal from chronic nicotine
self-administration on attentional performance.
METHODS: Animals were trained in a 5-choice serial reaction time task to probe
individual attentional performance and, then, were given access to a fixed
versus increasing dose of intravenous nicotine for self-administration, a
differential dose procedure known to induce two between-session patterns of
nicotine intake: a stable versus escalation pattern. Attentional performance was
measured daily before, during and also 24-h after chronic access to the
differential dose procedure of nicotine self-administration.
CONCLUSIONS: We found that pre-existing individual variation in attentional
performance predicts individual vulnerability to develop escalation of nicotine
intake. Moreover, while chronic nicotine self-administration increases
attention, withdrawal from nicotine intake escalation induces attentional
deficits, a withdrawal effect that is dose-dependently reversed by acute
nicotine. Together, these results suggest that pre-existing individual variation
in attentional performance predicts individual vulnerability to develop
escalation of nicotine intake, and that part of the motivation for using
nicotine during escalation might be to alleviate withdrawal-induced attentional
deficits.

© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany,
part of Springer Nature.

DOI: 10.1007/s00213-024-06604-x
PMID: 38743111

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