Nicotine’s Effects on Schizophrenia-like Symptoms in a Mice Model: Time Matters

Tobacco consumption in schizophrenia (SCHZ) patients is highly prevalent. Data support the occurrence of sequential events during comorbidity establishment, and both smoking first, SCHZ second and SCHZ first, smoking second sequences have been proposed. To investigate whether these two possibilities lead to distinct outcomes of comorbidity, we used a phencyclidine-induced SCHZ model and nicotine exposure as a surrogate of smoking. C57Bl/6 mice were submitted to a protocol that either began with 4 days of phencyclidine exposure or 4 days of nicotine exposure. This period was followed by 5 days of combined phencyclidine + nicotine exposure. Locomotor sensitization and pre-pulse inhibition (PPI) were assessed due to their well-known associations with SCHZ as opposed to rearing, an unrelated behavior. Nicotine priming potentiated phencyclidine-evoked sensitization. However, nicotine exposure after SCHZ modeling did not interfere with phencyclidine's effects. In the PPI test, nicotine after SCHZ modeling worsened the phencyclidine-evoked deficiency in males. In contrast, nicotine priming had no effects. Regarding rearing, nicotine priming failed to interfere with phencyclidine-mediated inhibition. Similarly, phencyclidine priming did not modify nicotine-mediated inhibition. The present results indicate that the sequence, either SCHZ-first or nicotine-first, differentially impacts comorbidity outcomes, a finding that is relevant for the identification of mechanisms of nicotine interference in the neurobiology of SCHZ.