Long-term changes in fear conditioning and anxiety-like behavior following nicotine exposure in adult versus adolescent rats

Adolescent nicotine alters dendritic morphology in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis

“…Other work (e.g., [19] has found clear involvement of the BNST in stress responses, which in turn have a strong association with addictive behaviors (e.g., [10]. Adolescent nicotine persistently alters both addictive [12] and stress/anxiety-like [16] behaviors (see [17], for review), and we suggest that dendrite remodeling in the BNST plays a role in this pattern of behavioral alteration.…”

“…In animal models, chronic adolescent nicotine increases anxiety-like behavior persisting into adulthood [16,15]. While nicotine is known to influence several brain regions involved in the development of anxiety-like behavior, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) has recently emerged as an area of particular interest, as studies have suggested a role for the BNST in coordinating activity of the autonomic, neuroendocrine, and somatic motor systems.…”

Combined Exposure to Nicotine and Ethanol in Adolescent Mice Differentially Affects Anxiety Levels during Exposure, Short-Term, and Long-Term Withdrawal

“…It is interesting that our results further indicate that nicotine failed to elicit long-lasting changes in anxiety levels, given that previous studies have recently reported that the anxiogenic response to adolescent nicotine persisted up to 1 month postexposure (Slawecki et al, 2003;Smith et al, 2006). However, studies looking at longterm effects of nicotine when administered in adolescents have used rats, as opposed to mice, and these species may differ in the time course of their response to nicotine.…”

“…Studies in animal models have reported both anxiolytic (Brioni et al, 1993) and anxiogenic (Ouagazzal et al, 1999) effects of nicotine. In accordance with the aforementioned differences between adolescent and adult human smokers, these conflicting patterns of response seem to depend on the age (adolescence vs adulthood) (Elliott et al, 2004;Smith et al, 2006). In addition, the regimen of administration, nicotine dose, sex, species/strain, and the method of assessing anxiety may also play a role (Adriani et al, 2004;Balerio et al, 2006;Cheeta et al, 2001;Elliott et al, 2004;Marco et al, 2006;Slawecki et al, 2003;Smith et al, 2006).…”

Maternal nicotine exposure during lactation alters food preference, anxiety-like behavior and the brain dopaminergic reward system in the adult rat offspring

“…For instance, a lower central activity in the OF was observed in preweanling animals that were exposed to nicotine during the neonatal period [46], as well as in adult rats which received nicotine during adolescence [98,101]. These findings can be explained by alterations in the dopaminergic system, characterized by lower D2R and DAT, resulting from nicotine programming.…”