<p>Smoking is a worldwide problem and it is the second major cause of death. People often try to quit, but few succeed mainly because of withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, increased appetite, hyperventilation and difficulty concentrating.</p><p>The overall aim of this project was to study neurochemical changes in the brain following sensitization to nicotine which could give more information about what causes an individual to go from using drugs to abusing the drugs. Therefore, we investigated messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression of several genes known to be involved in the mesolimbic dopamine pathway in the nucleus accumbens, caudate putamen, prefrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex using real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR).</p><p>The results showed that in the nucleus accumbens, mRNA expression of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) Aα1 subunit receptor and GABA transporter 3 (GAT-3) were significantly increased following nicotine administration, while in the caudate putamen no difference in expression was observed. In prefrontal cortex, the expression of adrenergic subunit receptor α2A was significantly increased following hexamethonium administration. In medial prefrontal cortex a significant decrease of expression of GAT-1 was shown following nicotine and hexamethonium administration, while a decrease of CART expression only was shown following nicotine administration.</p><p>Overall, these changes in the GABA system may help to explain the mechanism of nicotine sensitization.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:mdh-499 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Bergenheim, Veronica |
| Publisher | Mälardalen University, Department of Biology and Chemical Engineering, Institutionen för biologi och kemiteknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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