Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-mediated release of [3H]norepinephrine from developing and adult rat hippocampus: direct and indirect mechanisms

Chronic nicotine induces growth retardation in neonatal rat pups

“…Heteromeric receptor binding sites are located in the hypothalamus (Pabreza et al, 1991) where they regulate neuronal activity . In addition, alpha and beta nAChR subunits are expressed in catecholaminergic neurons (Azam et al, 2002;Winzer-Serhan and Leslie, 1997;Gallardo et al, 1997) where they have been implicated in regulating transmitter release (Yang et al, 1999;Miyata et al, 1999;Leslie et al, 2002). Thus, weight regulation by an action of nicotine through pre-and postsynaptic heteromeric receptors is possible.…”

Ligands selective for α4β2 but not α3β4 or α7 nicotinic receptors generalise to the nicotine discriminative stimulus in the rat

“…Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are located on nerve cell bodies, dendrites and axon terminals and are involved in modulation of release of multiple neurotransmitters such as dopamine (Cao et al 2005), glutamate (Lambe et al 2003), norepinephrine (Leslie et al 2002) and GABA (Zhu and Chiappinelli 2002). Neuronal nicotinic receptors are found as pentameric assemblies that can be formed from combinations of at least 11 different receptor subunits (α2-α10 and β2-β4).…”

Involvement of alpha1-adrenergic receptors in tranylcypromine enhancement of nicotine self-administration in rat

“…However, because of the large representation of nAChRs through the brain, other systems may be of importance for nicotine-induced reward. Interestingly, nAChRs are localized on noradrenergic cell bodies and terminals (Lena et al 1999), and nAChR-evoked release of norepinephrine (NE) has been demonstrated in several brain regions that receive noradrenergic innervation from the locus coeruleus (LC; Mitchell et al 1989;Engberg and Hajos 1994;Leslie et al 2002;O'Leary and Leslie 2003). Although a few reports have analyzed the involvement of NE in the rewarding properties of nicotine, its release by nicotine seems to deserve more attention.…”