Possible Interaction: Amphetamine and Nicotine

“Over the past years it has become evident … exposure to a variety of psychoactive stimulants, like amphetamine , cocaine, MDMA (3,4-…-N-methylamphetamine), methylphenidate and nicotine may produce profound behavioral changes as well as structural and neurochemical alterations … the brain that may persist long after drug administration has ceased.”

“The resemblance between the nicotine discriminative stimulus and those of the psychomotor stimulant drugs amphetamine and cocaine contributes to defining the nature of the addictive properties of nicotine.”

“However, this peroxide increase is attenuated when administering amphetamine plus nicotine.”

“We conclude that nicotine enhances reorienting of attention in visuospatial tasks and that one behavioral correlate of speeded RTs is reduced parietal activity.”

“An effect that nicotine and various other drugs (alcohol, cocaine, and amphetamine ) have in common is the induction of euphoria and pleasurable emotional feelings in users.”

“ Nicotine blocked the depression of ChI firing and corticostriatal activity and the potentiating response to an amphetamine challenge.”

“Together, these results demonstrate that nicotine reduces reward-associated behaviors following repeated amphetamine and modifies the changes in ChIs firing and corticostriatal activity.”

“We found that chronic nicotine reduced amphetamine (AMPH) induced circling behavior by 40%, whereas apomorphine (APO) increased this behavior by 230%.”

“Exposure to nicotine also rendered rats resistant to extinction when amphetamine was withheld but this effect was observed regardless of nicotine exposure context, suggesting a separate consequence of drug exposure.”

“ Nicotine enhanced the self-administration of amphetamine under the PR schedule and amphetamine-induced reinstatement but only when rats were tested in the chamber in which they were previously exposed to nicotine.”

“Together, these results show that previous exposure to nicotine can enhance the incentive motivational effects of other psychostimulants like amphetamine and indicate a critical role for nicotine-associated contextual stimuli in the mediation of this effect.”

“Prolonged nicotine pretreatment augmented locomotor responses to amphetamine in both genotypes and restored sensitization in D1−/− mice.”

“Correspondingly, nicotine given 1–4 h before amphetamine robustly enhanced amphetamine-stimulated locomotor activity even when the effects of the nicotine pretreatment dissipated.”

“However amphetamine , when given 2–4 h before nicotine , strongly potentiated nicotine-induced locomotor activity.”