Nicotine modulates contextual fear extinction through changes in ventral hippocampal GABAergic function.

Numerous studies have attributed the psychopathology of anxiety and stress disorders to maladaptive behavioral responses such as an inability to extinguish fear. Therefore, understanding neural substrates of fear extinction is imperative for developing more effective therapies for anxiety and stress disorders. Although several studies indicated a role for cholinergic transmission and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in anxiety and stress disorder symptomatology, very little is known about the specific contribution of nAChRs in the fear extinction process. In the present study, we first examined the involvement of several brain regions essential for fear extinction (i.e., dorsal and ventral hippocampus, dHPC and vHPC; infralimbic, IL, and prelimbic, PL of the medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC; basolateral nucleus of the amygdala, BLA) in the impairing effects of a nAChR agonist, nicotine, on contextual fear extinction in mice. Our results showed that systemic administration of nicotine during contextual fear extinction increased c-fos expression in the vHPC and BLA while not affecting dHPC, IL or PL. In line with these results, local nicotine infusions into the vHPC, but not dHPC, resulted in impaired contextual fear extinction. Interestingly, we found that local nicotine infusions into the PL also resulted in impairment of contextual fear extinction. Second, we measured the protein levels of the GABA synthesizing enzymes GAD65 and GAD67 in the dHPC and vHPC during contextual fear extinction. Our results showed that in the group that received acute nicotine, both GAD65 and GAD67 protein levels were downregulated in the vHPC, but not in dHPC. This effect was negatively correlated with the level of freezing response during fear extinction suggesting that the downregulated GAD65/67 levels were associated with disrupted fear extinction. Finally, using c-fos/GAD65/67 double immunofluorescence, we showed that nicotine mainly increased c-fos expression in non-GABAergic ventral hippocampal cells, indicating that acute nicotine increases vHPC excitability. Overall, our results suggest that acute nicotine's impairing effects on fear extinction are associated with ventral hippocampal disinhibition. Therefore, these results further our understanding of the interaction between nicotine addiction and anxiety and stress disorders by describing novel neural mechanisms mediating fear extinction.

Acute nicotine disrupts consolidation of contextual fear extinction and alters long-term memory-associated hippocampal kinase activity.

Previous research has shown that acute nicotine, an agonist of nAChRs, impaired fear extinction. However, the effects of acute nicotine on consolidation of contextual fear extinction memories and associated cell signaling cascades are unknown. Therefore, we examined the effects of acute nicotine injections before (pre-extinction) and after (post-extinction) contextual fear extinction on behavior and the phosphorylation of dorsal and ventral hippocampal ERK1/2 and JNK1 and protein levels on the 1st and 3rd day of extinction. Our results showed that acute nicotine administered prior to extinction sessions downregulated the phosphorylated forms of ERK1/2 in the ventral hippocampus, but not dorsal hippocampus, and JNK1 in both dorsal and ventral hippocampus on the 3rd extinction day. These effects were absent on the 1st day of extinction. We also showed that acute nicotine administered immediately and 30 min, but not 6 h, following extinction impaired contextual fear extinction suggesting that acute nicotine disrupts consolidation of contextual fear extinction memories. Finally, acute nicotine injections immediately after extinction sessions upregulated the phosphorylated forms of ERK1/2 in the ventral hippocampus, but did not affect JNK1. These results show that acute nicotine impairs contextual fear extinction potentially by altering molecular processes responsible for the consolidation of extinction memories.

Acute nicotine enhances spontaneous recovery of contextual fear and changes c-fos early gene expression in infralimbic cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.

Exposure therapy, which focuses on extinguishing fear-triggering cues and contexts, is widely used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet, PTSD patients who received successful exposure therapy are vulnerable to relapse of fear response after a period of time, a phenomenon known as spontaneous recovery (SR). Increasing evidence suggests ventral hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, and infralimbic cortex may be involved in SR. PTSD patients also show high rates of comorbidity with nicotine dependence. While the comorbidity between smoking and PTSD might suggest nicotine may alter SR, the effects of nicotine on SR of contextual fear are unknown. In the present study, we tested the effects of acute nicotine administration on SR of extinguished contextual fear memories and c-fos immediate early gene immunohistochemistry in mice. Our results demonstrated that acute nicotine enhanced SR of extinguished fear whereas acute nicotine did not affect retrieval of unextinguished contextual memories. This suggests that the effect of acute nicotine on SR is specific for memories that have undergone extinction treatment. C-fos immunoreactive (IR) cells in the ventral hippocampus and basolateral amygdala were increased in the nicotine-treated mice following testing for SR, whereas the number of IR cells in the infralimbic cortex was decreased in the same group. Overall, this study suggests that nicotine may adversely affect context-specific relapse of fear memories and this effect is potentially mediated by the suppression of cortical regions and increased activity in the ventral hippocampus and amygdala.

Protonation and substitution reactions of [{WFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-L)3]³â» (L = SEt or OMe): quantifying how metal content and spectator ligands individually affect reactivity.

Kinetic studies on the substitution reactions of the terminal chloro-ligands of [{WFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-L)3]³â» (L = SEt or MeO) by PhS⁻ in the presence of [NHEt3](+) or [pyrH](+) allow determination of the proton affinities and rates of PhS⁻ and proton binding to the clusters. The behaviours of both clusters are similar and follow the same general kinetic characteristics established in earlier work for other synthetic Fe-S-based clusters. Comparison of the results obtained with [{WFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-SEt)3]³â» with those of the isostructural [{MoFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-SEt)3]³â» shows that changing a Mo for W in the cuboidal cluster framework has a large effect on the rates of binding of PhS⁻ or a proton. In contrast, comparison of the results of [{WFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-SEt)3]³â» with those of [{WFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-OMe)3]³â» shows that changing the bridging ligands has only a small effect on the rates of binding of PhS⁻ or a proton. The reactivities of [{MFe3S4Cl3}2(µ-L)3]³â» are inconsistent with the major influence of the metal or bridging ligands being electronic, and are more consistent with their modulating the ability of the cluster to undergo bond length reorganisation during binding of the nucleophile or proton.

Rates of proton transfer to Fe-S-based clusters: comparison of clusters containing {MFe(mu(2)-S)(2)}n+ and {MFe(3)(mu(3)-S)(4)}n+ (M = Fe, Mo, or W) cores.

The rates of proton transfer from [pyrH]+ (pyr = pyrrolidine) to the binuclear complexes [Fe2S2Cl4]2- and [S2MS2FeCl2]2- (M = Mo or W) are reported. The reactions were studied using stopped-flow spectrophotometry, and the rate constants for proton transfer were determined from analysis of the kinetics of the substitution reactions of these clusters with the nucleophiles Br- or PhS- in the presence of [pyrH]+. In general, Br- is a poor nucleophile for these clusters, and proton transfer occurs before Br- binds, allowing direct measure of the rate of proton transfer from [pyrH]+ to the cluster. In contrast, PhS- is a better nucleophile, and a pathway in which PhS- binds preferentially to the cluster prior to proton transfer from [pyrH]+ usually operates. For the reaction of [Fe2S2Cl4]2- with PhS- in the presence of [pyrH]+ both pathways are observed. Comparison of the results presented in this paper with analogous studies reported earlier on cuboidal Fe-S-based clusters allows discussion of the factors which affect the rates of proton transfer in synthetic clusters including the nuclearity of the cluster core, the metal composition, and the nature of the terminal ligands. The possible relevance of these findings to the protonation sites of natural Fe-S-based clusters, including FeMo-cofactor from nitrogenase, are presented.

Direct studies on 5-coordinate intermediates formed during substitution at tetrahedral Fe sites: role of bound nucleophile in labilisation of leaving group.

The substitution reactions of the tetrahedral Fe sites in [FeCl(4)](-), [Fe(2)S(2)Cl(4)](2-), [Fe(4)S(4)Cl(4)](2-) and [{MoFe(3)S(4)Cl(3)}(2)(micro-SEt)(3)](3-) with 4-RC(6)H(4)S(-) (R = MeO, Me, H, Cl or NO(2)) all involve rapid binding of the thiolate to a Fe site and formation of a kinetically and spectroscopically detectable intermediate. Kinetic studies allow calculation of the rate of Fe-Cl dissociation from the 5-coordinate site of the intermediate (k(2)(R)). The rate of Fe-Cl dissociation from the intermediate exhibits a marked dependence on the nature of the bound thiolate with log(10)(k(2)(R)) increasing in a linear manner with the calculated NBO charge on the sulfur atom of the coordinated thiolate. This behaviour indicates that Fe-Cl bond dissociation at the 5-coordinate intermediate involves a process in which Fe-thiolate bond shortening occurs prior to movement of the Fe-Cl bond.

Kinetics and mechanism of the reactions of [FeCl4]- with PhS- or PhSH in MeCN, and the role of cations containing N-H groups.

The kinetics of the reactions between [FeCl4]- and an excess of PhS- have been studied using stopped-flow spectophotometry. The associated absorbance-time curves can be fitted to two exponentials, and these first and second phases correspond to the formation of [FeCl3(SPh)]- and [FeCl2(SPh)2]-, respectively. It seems likely that the steps involving formation of [FeCl(SPh)3]- and [Fe(SPh)4]- are associated with much smaller changes in absorbance and so are not detected. The kinetics of the first phase exhibit a non-linear dependence on the concentration of PhS- indicating an associative mechanism in which PhS- rapidly binds to [FeCl4]- to form [FeCl4(SPh)]2- prior to rate-limiting dissociation of chloride and formation of [FeCl3(SPh)]-. The kinetics indicate that at high concentrations of PhS-, the five-coordinate intermediate attains stoichiometric concentrations. This is confirmed by the spectroscopic changes. The second phase shows analogous kinetics. The kinetics of the reactions between [FeCl4]- and an excess of PhSH have also been studied. For the first phase the reaction occurs at a rate independent of the concentration of PhSH, consistent with an associative mechanism in which the solvent (MeCN) is the nucleophile to form [FeCl3(NCMe)]. Subsequent rapid replacement of the coordinated solvent by PhSH yields [FeCl3(SHPh)]. The kinetics of the second phase of the reaction with PhSH exhibits a non-linear dependence on the concentration of PhSH, analogous to the kinetics observed with PhS- and consistent with an associative mechanism. The cations [NHEt3]+, [NH2Et2]+ and [lutH]+ (lut = 2,6-dimethylpyridine) form ion pairs with [FeCl4]- which undergo substitution more rapidly than free [FeCl4]-.