Initiation of smoking mainly occurs during adolescence. Adolescents experience more stressful life events; therefore, stress may be a factor that contributes to this high risk of smoking initiation. The current study examines the effects of three different stressors (yohimbine, intermittent footshock and social defeat) on nicotine self-administration (NSA) in adolescent and adult rats. The effects of yohimbine and footshock were examined after the establishment of NSA behavior, while the effect of social defeat was tested on the initiation of NSA behavior. Yohimbine increased NSA, but the other two stressors did not. The increase in NSA induced by yohimbine tended to be higher in adults than in adolescents. No marked age differences in response to the other two stressors were observed. These results suggest that stress increases NSA in a stressor-specific manner, and that adolescents do not show enhanced vulnerability to the effect of stress on NSA.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/25542 |
| Date | 31 December 2010 |
| Creators | Zou, Sheng |
| Contributors | Le, Anh Dzung |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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