<p>Children are commonly prescribed fluoxetine to manage their depressive symptoms, although evidence suggests many fail to respond to this treatment. Recently, low doses of ketamine were shown to work as a fast-acting and long-lasting antidepressant, however, it is unclear what the long-term effects are of using ketamine in pediatric populations. Thus, this thesis examined whether early-life exposure to ketamine influences the rewarding effects of nicotine in male and female adolescent Sprague- Dawley rats using conditioned place preference. Rats were pretreated with ketamine (0.0 or 20.0 mg/kg) from postnatal day (PD) 21-30 and then assessed for nicotine (0.0, 0.03, 0.1, 0.3, or 0.6 mg/kg) preference during adolescence (PD 32-42). Results indicate that female adolescent rats find nicotine to be more rewarding than male rats, however ketamine pretreatment did not affect nicotine?s effects. These findings suggest that ketamine as an antidepressant in children and adolescents may not produce adverse increases in nicotine reward.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1597736 |
| Date | 01 October 2015 |
| Creators | Bowman, Melodi A. |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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