Regulation of intravenously self-administered nicotine in rats

Ten male Wistar rats had access to 9 doses of nicotine (0.01-0.10 mg/kg i.v.) during daily 5-hr sessions. Once responding for nicotine stabilized, nicotine infusions were replaced with either cocaine infusions (0.0-2.4 mg/kg) or saline infusions. Saline substitution results indicate that nicotine functioned as a reinforcer. Regulation of nicotine intake was compared with that of cocaine by obtaining the correlation between mean interdose interval and preceding dose size. Results reveal that although this correlation was significant for both nicotine and cocaine self-administration, nicotine self-administration was less precisely regulated than cocaine self-administration. This procedure suggests that there are differences in regulation among self-administered drugs and that it may serve as a useful baseline for studying differences in vulnerability to drug abuse and potential treatment strategies.