Galantamine improves enhanced impulsivity, impairments of attention and long-term potentiation induced by prenatal nicotine exposure to mice

Prenatal nicotine exposure (PNE) causes behavioral abnormalities in offspring, such as an enhancement of impulsivity and decrease in attention at adolescence. Here we examined the effects of galantamine (GAL) on the behavioral and electrophysiological changes induced by PNE in mice. Pregnant C57BL/6J mice were exposed to nicotine (0.2 mg/mL) dissolved in sweetened (2% saccharin) drinking water during gestational day 14 and perinatal day 0 (P0). At the ages of postnatal days 42-49 (P42-P49), female offspring displayed impulsivity in the cliff avoidance test and impairment of visual attention in the object-based attention test. Decrease of long-term potentiation (LTP) and extracellular glutamate levels were observed in the prefrontal cortex of PNE mice. Systemic treatment with GAL (1 mg/kg, s.c.), an allosteric potentiating ligand for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) and a weak cholinesterase inhibitor, attenuated the enhancement of impulsivity and impairment of attention induced by PNE in mice. Further, GAL reversed the impairment of LTP induced by PNE in the prefrontal cortex of mice, although it failed to attenuate the decrease of extracellular glutamate levels. The effects of GAL were blocked by an α 7 nAChR antagonist, methyllycaconitine (1 mg/kg, i.p.). These results suggest that PNE during cortex development affects nicotinic cholinergic-dependent plasticity and formation of impulsivity and attention. Furthermore, GAL could be a useful drug for cognitive impairments-related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.