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Paper   IPM / Cognitive Sciences / 7850
School of Cognitive Sciences
  Title:   Involvement of nucleus accumbens in L-arginine-induced conditioned place preference in rats
  Author(s): 
1.  H. Sahraei
2.  G. Pirzadeh-Jahromi
3.  M. Noorbakhshnia
4.  A. Asgari
5.  A. Haeri-Rohani
6.  A. Khoshbaten
7.  GR. Poorheidari
8.  H. Sepehri
9.  H. Ghoshooni
10.  MR. Zarrindast
  Status:   Published
  Journal: Behavioral Pharmacology
  No.:  7
  Vol.:  15
  Year:  2004
  Pages:   473-480
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
In the present study, the effects of intraperitoneal, intra-accumbal and intra-ventral tegmental area administration of L-arginine and N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl-ester (L-NAME) on conditioned place preference behavior were studied. Intraperitoneal (i.p.; 0.5, 1 and 5 mg/kg) and intra-accumbal (intra-NAc; 0.3, 1 and 3 microg/rat), but not intra-ventral tegmental area (intra-VTA; 0.3, 1 and 3 microg/rat) administrations of L-arginine produced a significant place conditioning. Similar injections of L-NAME did not produce any response. However, intraperitoneal pretreatment of the animals with L-NAME (5, 10 and 20 mg/kg), 30 min before L-arginine administration, significantly abolished the acquisition of place conditioning induced by either intraperitoneal or intra-accumbal injection of L-arginine. Moreover, injection of L-NAME (5, 10 and 20 mg/kg) on the test day did not alter the L-arginine response. The results may indicate that L-arginine induces conditioned place preference via an increase in nitric oxide (NO) in the nucleus accumbens.

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