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Updated: Aug 12, 2026
Vinyl Chloride and High-Fat Diet as a Model of Environment and Obesity Interaction
Published on: January 12, 2020
A high-fat diet has sex-specific effects on nicotine vapor self-administration in mice
Brandon J Henderson1, Montana R Richardson1, Skylar Y Cooper1
1Department of Biomedical Sciences, Joan C Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University, 1700 3rd Ave, Huntington, WV 25703, USA.
Background:
Previous investigations have shown that fat-rich diets increase vulnerability to drug dependence, including nicotine. Despite this knowledge, few investigations into the neurochemical mechanisms have been completed. Our objective here was to examine if high-fat diet (HFD) impacted nicotine intake and in parallel examine potential changes in dopamine signaling.
Methods:
Adult male and female C57/BL6J mice were used in nicotine e-vape® self-administration (EVSA) assays after being maintained on a standard diet or HFD for 6 weeks. In a separate cohort of mice, dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core was examined with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry.
Results:
Female mice assigned to HFD exhibited increased nicotine EVSA during low-effort responding (FR1) when compared to standard-diet mice. HFD-assigned mice (male and female) also exhibited reduced active nose pokes in a progressive ratio task. Finally, HFD-mice exhibited reduced phasic dopamine release compared to standard-diet mice.
Conclusions:
These show that fat-rich diets alter nicotine intake (females increase at low effort, males and females decrease at high effort) and this may occur due to HFD-induced decreases in NAc dopamine release.
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