Fig. 3.

Nicotine and varenicline are anxiolytic in the NIH test on novel test day. Mice received intraperitoneal injections of saline or drug 10 min before testing. Latency to approach and consume food is shown as seconds ± S.E.M. Treatment with chlordiazepoxide (10 mg/kg), a benzodiazepine, significantly reduced the latency to consume food in a novel environment (∗∗, p = 0.001). Similarly, acute nicotine treatment (0.3 mg/kg) significantly reduced the amount of time required to investigate and consume food in a novel environment relative to saline controls (∗∗∗, p = 0.0001). Likewise, acute varenicline (0.1 mg/kg) significantly reduced the time required to investigate and consume food in a novel environment compared with saline controls (∗∗∗, p = 0.0001). However, acute treatment with sazetidine-A resulted in significantly increased latencies to approach and consume food in a novel environment compared with saline controls (∗∗∗, p = 0.0001). No significant treatment effects were observed in the home environment (n = 10).