Neurotoxicological profile assessment of lobeline after acute treatment in mice

Lobeline is a natural alkaloid with high affinity for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and it is a promising candidate for addiction treatment in human beings. This work evaluated the toxicological profile of lobeline with different behavioural models and investigated its effect on DNA damage (comet assay and micronucleus test) in mice. Acute administration of lobeline (5 or 10 mg/kg; i.p.) did not impair the parameters measured in the habituation and inhibitory avoidance test, suggesting that it has no effect on memory acquisition in these tasks. Lobeline did not affect the number or the latency to the first head-dip in the hole board test, indicating that it was not anxiolytic/anxiogenic in this model. No genotoxic effects were observed in blood, liver and brain tissues collected 24 hr after the single injection of lobeline (both doses). There was no increase in micronucleus frequency in mice treated with lobeline, indicating the absence of toxicity in bone marrow of the animals. Therefore, the acute treatment with high doses of lobeline did not impair the behavioural parameters measured in this work. Additionally, the drug was not able to produce DNA damage.