ArticlePsychopharmacology2023
Nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonism dose-dependently decreases sign- but not goal-tracking behavior in male rats.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beyond dopamine: Broader neuromodulatory contributions in sign- and goal-tracking.Psychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Cholinergic regulation of decision making under risk of punishment.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2025Article
- Nucleus accumbens core acetylcholine receptors modulate the balance of flexible and inflexible cue-directed motivation.Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleAcetylcholinergic antagonists have shown some promise in reducing addiction-related behaviors in both preclinical and clinical studies. However, the psychological mechanisms by which these drugs are able to affect addictive behavior remain unclear. A particular key process for the development of addiction is the attribution of incentive salience to reward-related cues, which can be specifically measured in animals using a Pavlovian conditioned approach procedure. When confronted with a lever that predicts food delivery, some rats engage with the lever directly (i.e., they sign track), indicating attribution of incentive-motivational properties to the lever itself. In contrast, others treat the lever as a predictive cue and approach the location of impending food delivery (i.e., they goal track), without treating the lever itself as a reward.
objectivesWe tested whether systemic antagonism of the either nicotinic or muscarinic acetylcholine receptors would selectively affect sign- or goal-tracking behavior, indicating a selective effect on incentive salience attribution.
methodsA total of 98 male Sprague Dawley rats were either given the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine (100, 50, or 10 µg/kg i.p.) or the nicotinic antagonist mecamylamine (0.3, 1.0, or 3 mg/kg i.p.) before being trained on a Pavlovian conditioned approach procedure.
resultsScopolamine dose-dependently decreased sign tracking behavior and increased goal-tracking behavior. Mecamylamine reduced sign-tracking but did not affect goal-tracking behavior.
conclusionsAntagonism of either muscarinic or nicotinic acetylcholine receptors can reduce incentive sign-tracking behavior in male rats. This effect appears to be specifically due to a reduction in incentive salience attribution since goal-tracking either increased or was not affected by these manipulations.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.