Nicotinic receptors in the habenula: importance for memory
- Resource Type
- Authors
- S. Baccus; D. Sanders; D. Simkiss; Terrell R. Morton; Reginald Cannady; Edward D. Levin; Jed E. Rose; D. Braddy; N. Weaver
- Source
- Neuroscience. 166(2)
- Subject
- medicine.medical_specialty
Nicotine
Habenular nuclei
Spatial Behavior
Nicotinic Antagonists
Mecamylamine
Receptors, Nicotinic
Choice Behavior
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Internal medicine
medicine
Animals
Nicotinic Agonists
Maze Learning
Analysis of Variance
Habenula
Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
Cerebrum
Working memory
business.industry
General Neuroscience
Rats
medicine.anatomical_structure
Endocrinology
Nicotinic agonist
Memory, Short-Term
Female
Brainstem
business
Neuroscience
Psychomotor Performance
medicine.drug
- Language
- ISSN
- 1873-7544
The habenula is an epithalamic structure through which descending connections pass from the telencephalon to the brainstem, putting it in a key location to provide feedback control over the brainstem monoaminergic projections ascending to the telencephalon. Habenular nuclei lesions have been shown to impair memory function. The habenular nuclei have high concentrations of nicotinic receptors. In this study we assessed the role of habenular nicotinic receptors for working memory. Adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were trained on a 16-arm maze to assess spatial working and reference memory. All rats had at least 18 sessions of training and then had bilateral chronic infusion cannulae placed into the lateral habenula nucleus. These cannulae were each connected to a slow delivery osmotic minipump that chronically infused mecamylamine 100 microg/side/day (n=9) or vehicle (aCSF) for controls (n=15) for a period of 4 weeks. Both mecamylamine-infused and control rats were acutely injected (s.c.) with nicotine (0, 0.2 or 0.4 mg/kg) in a repeated measures counterbalanced design twice at each dose during the chronic local infusion period. There was a significant (P