Chronic nicotine increases midbrain dopamine neuron activity and biases individual strategies towards reduced exploration in mice

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 6945 - 15
• Main Authors: Dongelmans, Malou, Durand-de Cuttoli, Romain, Nguyen, Claire, Come, Maxime, Duranté, Etienne K., Lemoine, Damien, Brito, Raphaël, Ahmed Yahia, Tarek, Mondoloni, Sarah, Didienne, Steve, Bousseyrol, Elise, Hannesse, Bernadette, Reynolds, Lauren M., Torquet, Nicolas, Dalkara, Deniz, Marti, Fabio, Mourot, Alexandre, Naudé, Jérémie, Faure, Philippe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26.11.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/378/116/2396; 631/378/1788; 631/378/3920; 9/30; Animals; Behavior, Animal - drug effects; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Decision analysis; Decision making; Dopamine; Dopamine - metabolism; Dopamine receptors; Dopaminergic Neurons - drug effects; Dopaminergic Neurons - metabolism; Exploitation; Exploration; Exploratory behavior; Exploratory Behavior - drug effects; Exploratory Behavior - physiology; Exposure; Genetics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Information processing; Intracranial self-stimulation; Life Sciences; Male; Mesencephalon; Mesencephalon - cytology; Mesencephalon - drug effects; Mesencephalon - metabolism; Mice; Models, Animal; multidisciplinary; Neurons; Neurons and Cognition; Nicotine; Nicotine - administration & dosage; Nicotine - adverse effects; Optics; Optogenetics; Phenotypes; Prejudice; Reinforcement; Reward; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Self Administration; Self stimulation; Stereotaxic Techniques; Tradeoffs

Long-term exposure to nicotine alters brain circuits and induces profound changes in decision-making strategies, affecting behaviors both related and unrelated to drug seeking and consumption. Using an intracranial self-stimulation reward-based foraging task, we investigated in mice the impact of ch...