Caroline Seaman | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Caroline Seaman
Title: Nicotine and the Nucleus Accumbens: a DREADDs and CPP Study of Addiction Behavior
Major: Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience
Minor: Chinese Studies
Advisors: Alfredo Zúñiga; Amy Jo Stavnezer

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a subcortical striatal structure that has been implicated in modulating the addictive effects of drugs of abuse, such as nicotine. Nicotine, the addictive component in tobacco products, acts on NAc receptors to produce the rewarding effects associated with addiction, and drive drug seeking behavior. Designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) is a subfield of chemogenetics that allows for the activation of specific cell populations to determine their role in a given behavior. Conditioned place preference (CPP) is a longstanding paradigm used to observe the effects of a substance of interest, such as nicotine. Using both excitatory DREADDs activation of the NAc and CPP, I sought to further determine the role of the NAc in drug seeking behavior in a mouse model of addiction. Animals were first stereotaxically injected with hM3Dq DREADDs, then conditioned to nicotine through CPP. Following conditioning, animals underwent a second round of CPP tests, this time while injected with clozapine-N-oxide (CNO) to activate DREADDs. The results of this study confirmed that nicotine indeed increases amount of time spent in a drug paired context, but revealed no significant effects of DREADDs activation in the NAc on these behaviors. Further research is necessary to determine the nature of the relationship between nicotine and CNO, and to elucidate the role of the NAc in nicotine addiction. This was an engaging and exciting project that may hopefully provide a baseline for further research on drugs of abuse and addiction behaviors.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.