The duration of nicotine withdrawal-associated deficits in contextual fear conditioning parallels changes in hippocampal high affinity nicotinic acetylcholine receptor upregulation

► The duration of nicotine withdrawal-related deficits in learning is 4-5 days. ► Changes in hippocampal cytisine-sensitive binding parallel changes in behavior. ► Chronic nicotine does not increase α4, β2, or α7 subunit mRNA expression.