Date of Award

6-2008

Document Type

Union College Only

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Neuroscience

First Advisor

Quynh Chu-LaGraff

Language

English

Keywords

cocaine, galanin, self, administration, knock

Abstract

Recent data suggests that galanin - a neuropeptide - attenuates the rewarding effects of cocaine. For one, knock out mice deficient in galanin show increased cocaine- conditioned place preference. In addition preliminary data collected in our lab suggests that galnon attenuates cocaine self-administration. This study aimed to further investigate the role of galanin in cocaine reward utilizing two different paradigms: locomotor activity and self-administration. The results suggest that galanin knock-out mice are more sensitive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. Galanin knock-out mice treated with 10 mg/kg cocaine intraperitoneally (IP) were found to be significantly more active than their wild-type counterparts. In addition, although nothing statically sound can be said about the effect of the genotype on the number of infusions in the self-administration experiments, the single galanin knock-out mouse that did acquire self-administration self-administered more at each level of cocaine.

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