Fig. 5

Microdialysis studies of treatment effects on DA release in nAcb. All compounds increased extracellular DA concentrations from baseline within the nAcb. Microdialysis was performed in awake, freely moving rats. Baseline measures were taken in each rat until three consecutive basal DA samples displayed less than 17 % variance. Rats were then pretreated with their respective compounds. Samples were taken every 20 min for 180 min after nicotine administration (or l-THP administration when only l-THP was given), all data is presented as mean + S.E.M. a Effect of nicotine or l-THP on extracellular DA concentration in nAcb. Both compounds significantly increased DA concentration from baseline within the nAcb, one-way ANOVA **p < 0.01. b Area under the curve (AUC) analysis and comparison of pretreatments to area under the curve of nicotine treated rats (AUC collected from time of pretreatment to 60 min after nicotine was administered). The l-THP only group is displayed to show a comparison of changes in extracellular DA concentration caused by l-THP under nicotine-free conditions within the same 60 min time frame. l-THP pretreated rats who received nicotine and bupropion pretreated rats who received nicotine had significantly higher AUCs than rats receiving nicotine alone. Bupropion pretreated rats receiving nicotine had the highest AUC, one-way ANOVA * denotes comparison to nicotine only group, # denotes comparison to l-THP-Nic group, **p < 0.01, # p < 0.05, n = 4–6 per group