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  • Title: Nicotine-induced conditioned taste aversions are enhanced in rats with lesions of the area postrema.
    Author: Ossenkopp KP, Giugno L.
    Journal: Pharmacol Biochem Behav; 1990 Jul; 36(3):625-30. PubMed ID: 2377663.
    Abstract:
    Lesions, which destroy the area postrema and damage the adjacent nucleus of the solitary tract, attenuate or abolish conditioned taste aversions (CTA) induced by a variety of pharmacological agents. In the present experiment 2 groups of male rats received lesions of the area postrema and 2 groups were given sham lesions. One lesioned group and one sham-lesioned group were twice conditioned with 30-min access to a novel 0.15% saccharin solution followed by injection of nicotine (1 mg/kg, IP). The other 2 groups were similarly conditioned with saccharin followed by saline injections. In subsequent two-bottle choice tests (saccharin vs. water), the saline-injected rats exhibited strong preferences for saccharin, the sham-lesioned rats injected with nicotine showed a weak but significant (p less than 0.05) aversion to saccharin, and the area postrema-lesioned rats injected with nicotine displayed a significantly (p less than 0.05) stronger CTA than the drug-injected sham-lesioned animals. In Phase 2 all rats were given novel chocolate metrecal (30 min) followed by injection of scopolamine HCl (1 mg/kg, IP). The area postrema-lesioned rats showed significant (p less than 0.01) preference for the chocolate taste relative to the aversions shown by the sham-lesioned animals. Thus, area postrema lesions attenuated a scopolamine-induced CTA, but enhanced a nicotine-induced aversion. These results suggest that nicotine and scopolamine act at different neural sites in producing CTAs.
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