Acute nicotine enhances spontaneous recovery of contextual fear and changes c-fos early gene expression in infralimbic cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.

ABSTRACT: Exposure therapy, which focuses on extinguishing fear-triggering cues and contexts, is widely used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, PTSD patients who received successful exposure therapy are vulnerable to relapse of fear response after a period of time, a phenomenon known as spontaneous recovery (SR). Increasing evidence suggests ventral hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and infralimbic cortex may be involved in SR. PTSD patients also show high rates of comorbidity with nicotine dependence. While the comorbidity between smoking and PTSD might suggest nicotine may alter SR, the effects of nicotine on SR of contextual fear are unknown. In the present study, we tested the effects of acute nicotine administration on SR of extinguished contextual fear memories and c-fos imm

SUBMITTER: Kutlu MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4947235 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature