Evaluación de la Nicotina como Estímulo Aversivo

Abstract

Nicotine is the main ingredient of tobacco and it has been described as aversive, reinforce and procognitive. However there is not enough research about the overlapping of the dose-dependent effects as aversive stimulus and precognitive effects. For those reasons we evaluated the nicotine effects on the Conditioned Taste Aversion paradigm (CTA) to measure the dose-response curve of the aversive effects of nicotine and to compare such effects with the procognitive effects reported. 20 male Wistar rats in standard laboratory conditions were randomly assigned to 5 groups (0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8 y 1.6mg/kg i.p.). The obtained results showed a dose-dependent decrease with a maximum effect at 1.6mg/kg dose; however we founded effects from the 0.8mg/kg dose, such dose overlapped with procognitive doses reported. These results allow us to propose that some effects could be due the periferical aversive effects instead of the central procognitive effects.