Vitamin D3 reduces hippocampal NR2A and anxiety in nicotine withdrawal mice

• Published in: Translational neuroscience Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 273 - 281
• Main Authors: Wu, Bingxue, Tao, Xinrong, Liu, Chuanlin, Li, Huaixu, Jiang, Tao, Chen, Zijun, Wang, Qi, Liu, Fei, Mu, Min, Chen, Zhaoyan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany De Gruyter 11.06.2021; De Gruyter Poland
• Subjects: Anxiety; Anxiety disorders; anxiety-like behavior; Calciferol; Cigarette smoking; Dietary supplements; Drinking water; Drug addiction; Field tests; Gene expression; Glutamic acid receptors; Hippocampus; mRNA; N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid receptors; Nicotine; nicotine withdrawal; NR2A; Open-field behavior; Signs and symptoms; Smoking; Tobacco smoke; Vitamin D; Vitamin D3; anxiety-like behavior; hippocampus; nicotine withdrawal; NR2A; vitamin D3
• ISSN: 2081-3856; 2081-6936; 2081-6936
• DOI: 10.1515/tnsci-2020-0166

Nicotine withdrawal symptoms, mainly anxiety, cause high level of relapse rate after quitting smoking. Vitamin D supplementation has shown its potential for the prevention and treatment of anxiety disorders; however, neurobiological studies about the effect of vitamin D on nicotine withdrawal-induced anxiety are limited. To investigate the effect and molecular mechanism of vitamin D3 supplement by dietary on anxiety-like behavior during nicotine withdrawal, male C57/BL6 mice were divided into four groups: vehicle, nicotine only, vitamin D3 only, and nicotine plus vitamin D3. Mice were administrated with nicotine in drinking water (200 µg/mL), and vitamin D3 in feed for 6 weeks. During nicotine withdrawal, vitamin D3-treated mice showed significantly less anxiety-like behavior by an open-field test and marble buried test that performed an increase in the duration of the central zone and a decrease buried marble, respectively. Moreover, vitamin D3 supplementation attenuated the hippocampal NR2A expression on both protein and mRNA levels in nicotine and vitamin D3-treated mice. Our data showed that dietary supplementation with vitamin D3 ameliorated nicotine withdrawal-induced anxiety, which may be related to downregulation of NR2A expression in hippocampus. Vitamin D3 may provide a new dietary intervention with the easy access for smoking cessation.