Estrogen differentially modulates nicotine-evoked dopamine release from the striatum of male and female rats.

Estrogen differentially modulates nicotine-evoked dopamine release from the striatum of male and female rats.

Dluzen D E; Anderson L I

Neuroscience letters

1997

1997-07

In the present experiment we examined the effects of an in vitro infusion of nicotine (10 microM) upon dopamine release from superfused striatum of castrated male and female rats treated or not treated with estrogen. Estrogen exerted bidirectional effects on nicotine-evoked dopamine release as a function of the sex of the animal. Nicotine-evoked dopamine release was increased in estrogen treated females and decreased in estrogen treated males. Peak nicotine-evoked dopamine output from estrogen treated females was significantly greater than that of estrogen treated males. These results may be related to the gender differences in response to nicotine and smoking behavior.

Animals; Corpus Striatum/drug effects/*metabolism; Dopamine/*metabolism; Estradiol/*pharmacology; Female; In Vitro Techniques; Kinetics; Male; Nicotine/*pharmacology; Orchiectomy; Ovariectomy; Rats; Sex Characteristics; Sprague-Dawley

Article information provided for research and reference use only. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

140–142

2

230