Nature Communications (Nov 2021)

Chronic nicotine increases midbrain dopamine neuron activity and biases individual strategies towards reduced exploration in mice

  • Malou Dongelmans,
  • Romain Durand-de Cuttoli,
  • Claire Nguyen,
  • Maxime Come,
  • Etienne K. Duranté,
  • Damien Lemoine,
  • Raphaël Brito,
  • Tarek Ahmed Yahia,
  • Sarah Mondoloni,
  • Steve Didienne,
  • Elise Bousseyrol,
  • Bernadette Hannesse,
  • Lauren M. Reynolds,
  • Nicolas Torquet,
  • Deniz Dalkara,
  • Fabio Marti,
  • Alexandre Mourot,
  • Jérémie Naudé,
  • Philippe Faure

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27268-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 15

Abstract

Read online

Chronic nicotine exposure impacts various components of decision-making processes, such as exploratory behaviors. Here, the authors identify the cellular mechanism and show that chronic nicotine exposure increases the tonic activity of VTA dopaminergic neurons and reduces exploration in mice.