Sex Differences in Hippocampal Neuronal Sensitization by Nicotine in M. gerbils.
We studied the sex different nicotine effect on evoked population spike amplitudes (ePSA) and connexin (Cx) expression in the hippocampus CA1 area of gerbils. Acute doses of nicotine bitartrate (0.5 mg/kg: NT-0.5) slightly reduced ePSA in males but markedly augmented that in females. Acute NT (5.0 mg/kg) markedly increased the ePSA in all gerbils. Unlike acute NT-0.5, repeated NT-0.5 injection (twice a day for 7 days) significantly increased the ePSA in males and slightly affected the NT-0.5 effect in females. The Cx36 and Cx43 expression levels as well as Cx expressing neuronal populations were significantly increased by repeated NT-0.5 in in both male and female gerbils, and particularly, Cx43 expression was somewhat prominent in females. These results demonstrated a sex difference with respect to the nicotine effect on hippocampal bisynaptic excitability, irrelevant to connexin expression.
Department of Pharmacology, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul 136-705, Korea.
Young-Na
YN
Hur
Joon
J
Lee
Seung-Chan
SC
Sohn
Chung-Gil
CG
Won
Hyung-Ha
HH
Lee
Dong-Hoon
DH
Kim
Sang-Hyun
SH
Choi
Kyung-Ho
KH
Shin
Boe-Gwun
BG
Chun
Connexin; Evoked population spike; Hippocampus; Nicotine; Sex difference