title: Scopolamine-physostigmine combination does not substitute for nicotine.
abstract: 1. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained to discriminate 0.4 mg/kg nicotine subcutaneously administered from its saline vehicle in a food-motivated operant discrimination task. Once trained, the discriminative performance was observed to be dose-responsive with an ED50 = 0.11 mg/kg. 2. The co-administration of 0.1 or 0.2 mg/kg physostigmine with either 0.1, 0.15 or 0.2 mg/kg scopolamine produced intermediate discriminative effects, i.e., neither nicotine- nor saline-like responding. However, the physostigmine-scopolamine combination neither substituted for nor increased the discriminative effects of co-administered nicotine. 3. The theoretical/mechanistic possibility that a combination of a cholinesterase inhibitor to increase available acetylcholine plus a specific anti-muscarinic to allow that increased acetylcholine to stimulate nicotinic receptors was investigated. Results indicate that the combination does not produce nicotine-like discriminative effects and evidence the possibility that nicotine discrimination may involve non-cholinergic mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, USA.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Schechter
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000187:drug effects*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D007279:Injections, Subcutaneous; D008297:Male; D009538:Nicotine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D010830:Physostigmine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic / Q000187:drug effects; D012601:Scopolamine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis
chemical_list: D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic; D009538:Nicotine; D010830:Physostigmine; D012601:Scopolamine