Nicotine enhances contextual fear memory reconsolidation in rats

There is increasing evidence that nicotine is involved in learning and memory. However, there remains no study that has explored the relationship between nicotine and memory reconsolidation. At present study, we tested the effects of nicotine on the reconsolidation of contextual fear memory in rats. Behavior procedure involved four training phases: habituation (Day 0), fear conditioning (Day 1), reactivation (Day 2) and test (Day 3). Rats were injected saline or nicotine (0.25, 0.5 and 1.0mg/kg) immediately after reactivation. Percent of time spent freezing was used to measure conditioned fear response. Results showed that compared with saline rats, rats with nicotine at 1.0mg/kg presented a significant increase of freezing response on Day 3. Nicotine at 1.0mg/kg was ineffective when injected 6h after reactivation. Further results showed that the enhancement of freezing response induced by nicotine at 1.0mg/kg was dependent on fear memory reconsolidation, and was not attributed to an enhancement of the nonspecific freezing response 24h after nicotine administration. The results suggest that nicotine administration immediately after reactivation enhances contextual fear memory reconsolidation. Our present finding extends previous research on the nicotinic effects on learning and memory.