ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2010
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the mesolimbic pathway: primary role of ventral tegmental area alpha6beta2* receptors in mediating systemic nicotine effects on dopamine release, locomotion, and reinforcement.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 141 papers.
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Who cites it
141 citing papers in PubMed, 227 citations in OpenAlex.
- Acute nicotine differentially impacts anticipatory valence- and magnitude-related striatal activity.Biological psychiatry · 2013Trial
- Chronic exposure to nicotine is associated with reduced reward-related activity in the striatum but not the midbrain.Biological psychiatry · 2012Trial
- Acetylcholine nicotinic receptors play a central role in the modulation of rewarding behaviors by interacting with dopamine transmission: evidence from male rat sexual behavior.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Multiple sources of β2*-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor binding are differentially affected during tobacco smoking abstinence as revealed by Independent Component Analysis of [Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Article
- α-Conotoxin TxIB Reversed Nicotine-Induced Locomotor Sensitization and Nicotine-Enhanced Dopaminergic Activity in Mice.Marine drugs · 2025Article
- "Unraveling the role ofReceptors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Major Depression in Comorbidity with Substance use Disorders: Patients' Features and Clinical-Neurobiological Rationale of Antidepressant Treatments.Current neuropharmacology · 2025Review
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- Behavioral and neuronal extracellular vesicle biomarkers associated with nicotine's enhancement of the reinforcing strength of cocaine in female and male monkeys.Addiction neuroscience · 2024Article
- Expression pattern of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit transcripts in neurons and astrocytes in the ventral tegmental area and locus coeruleus.The European journal of neuroscience · 2024Article
- Nicotine-related beliefs induce dose-dependent responses in the human brain.Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- The many enigmas of nicotine.Advances in pharmacology (San Diego, Calif.) · 2024Review
- The human alpha7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor is a host target for the rabies virus glycoprotein.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- New medications development for smoking cessation.Addiction neuroscience · 2023Article
- Elucidating the reinforcing effects of nicotine: a tribute to Nadia Chaudhri.Psychopharmacology · 2023Review
- Review
- Sex- and Genotype-Dependent Nicotine-Induced Behaviors in Adolescent Rats with a Human Polymorphism (rs2304297) in the 3'-UTR of theInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Sex- and genotype-dependent nicotine plus cue-primed reinstatement is enhanced in adolescent Sprague Dawley rats containing the humanFrontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Neurobiological Mechanisms of Nicotine Reward and Aversion.Pharmacological reviews · 2022Review
81 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
alpha6* nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are highly and selectively expressed by mesostriatal dopamine (DA) neurons. These neurons are thought to mediate several behavioral effects of nicotine, including locomotion, habit learning, and reinforcement. Yet the functional role of alpha6* nAChRs in midbrain DA neurons is mostly unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the composition and in vivo functional role of alpha6* nAChR in mesolimbic DA neurons of male rats. Immunoprecipitation and immunopurification techniques coupled with cell-specific lesions showed that the composition of alpha6* nAChR in the mesostriatal system is heterogeneous, with (non-alpha4)alpha6beta2* being predominant in the mesolimbic pathway and alpha4alpha6beta2* in the nigrostriatal pathway. We verified whether alpha6* receptors mediate the systemic effects of nicotine on the mesolimbic DA pathway by perfusing the selective antagonists alpha-conotoxin MII (CntxMII) (alpha3/alpha6beta2* selective) or alpha-conotoxin PIA (CntxPIA) (alpha6beta2* selective) into ventral tegmental area (VTA). The intra-VTA perfusion of CntxMII or CntxPIA markedly decreased systemic nicotine-elicited DA release in the nucleus accumbens and habituated locomotion; the intra-VTA perfusion of CntxMII also decreased the rate of nicotine infusion in the maintenance phase of nicotine, but not of food, self-administration. Overall, the results of these experiments show that the alpha6beta2* nAChRs expressed in the VTA are necessary for the effects of systemic nicotine on DA neuron activity and DA-dependent behaviors such as locomotion and reinforcement, and suggest that alpha6beta2*-selective compounds capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier may affect the addictive properties of nicotine and therefore be useful in the treatment of tobacco dependence.
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