Abstract
Smokers, who generally present with lung damage, are more anxious than non-smokers and have an associated augmented risk of panic. Considering that lung damage signals specific neural pathways that are related to affective responses, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of pulmonary injury on anxiety and panic-like behaviours in animals exposed to cigarette smoke with and without tobacco. Male Wistar rats were divided into the following groups: a control group (CG); a regular cigarette group (RC); and a tobacco-free cigarette (TFC) group. Animals were exposed to twelve cigarettes per day for eight consecutive days. The animals were then exposed to an elevated T-maze and an open field. The RC and TFC groups presented increases in inflammatory cell inflow, antioxidant enzyme activity, and TBARS levels, and a decrease in the GSH/GSSG ratio was observed in the TFC group. Exposure to RC smoke reduced anxiety and panic-related behaviours. On the other hand, TFC induced anxiety and panic-related behaviours. Thus, our results contradict the concept that nicotine is solely accountable for shifted behavioural patterns caused by smoking, in that exposure to TFC smoke causes anxiety and panic-related behaviours.
Highlights
Cigarette smoke is one of the several agents and environmental factors that can trigger oxidative stress and pulmonary damage[5]
The macrophage count in animals exposed to tobacco-free cigarettes (TFC) smoke was, on average, 41% higher than that of the control animals and 42% higher than that of animals exposed to regular cigarette (RC) smoke
The neutrophil count in animals exposed to RC smoke was increased by 410% compared to the control group (CG) and by 63% compared to the TFC group, on average
Summary
Cigarette smoke is one of the several agents and environmental factors that can trigger oxidative stress and pulmonary damage[5]. As regular cigarettes are known to contain anxiolytic substances, such as nicotine[19], we used TFC in order to evaluate the effect of smoke and the corresponding lung damage caused by it, on anxiety and panic-related behaviours without the influence of tobacco. To this end, we compared the influence of exposure to the smoke produced by these two cigarette types on lung damage by analysing inflammatory cell influx and oxidative stress and the effect on the aforementioned behaviours by using the elevated T-maze paradigm
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