Acute stress and nicotine cues interact to unveil locomotor arousal and activity-dependent gene expression in the prefrontal cortex.

Background: This study examines the interactive effects of acute stress and nicotine-associated contextual cues on locomotor activity and activity-dependent gene expression in subregions of the prefrontal cortex.

Methods: Locomotor activity of rats was measured in a context associated with either low-dose nicotine or saline administration with or without 5 minutes of pre-exposure to ferrets, a nonphysical stressor. After 45 minutes in the test environment, plasma corticosterone levels and mRNA levels of the immediate-early genes Arc, NGFI-B, and c-Fos in prefrontal and primary motor cortical subregions were measured.

Results: Stress alone increased plasma corticosterone and prefrontal cortex gene expression. Low-dose nicotine cues had no effect on corticosterone levels nor did they elicit conditioned motor activation, and they caused minor elevations in gene expression. Stress and low-dose nicotine cues, however, interacted to elicit conditioned motor activation and further increases in early response gene expression in prefrontal but not in the primary motor cortical subregions.

Conclusions: Stress interacts with nicotine-associated cues to uncover locomotor arousal, a state associated with prefrontal neuronal activation and immediate early gene expression. Thus, in nicotine-experienced individuals, stress may be an important determinant of subjective reactivity and prefrontal cortex activation that occurs in response to nicotine-associated cues.