Mice lacking the melanin-concentrating hormone receptor-1 exhibit an atypical psychomotor susceptibility to cocaine and no conditioned cocaine response

The present study aimed at characterizing the acute and intermittent psychomotor responsiveness to cocaine in mice lacking the MCHR1 receptor, which is thought to modulate the mesocorticolimbic sytem functioning [Smith DG, Tzavara ET, Shaw J, Luecke S, Wade M, Davis R, et al. Mesolimbic dopamine super-sensitivity in melanin-concentrating hormone-1 receptor deficient mice. J Neurosci 2005;25:914–22]. On a first free-drug session, MCHR1-deficient mice exhibited significantly higher levels of locomotor activity elicited by the novelty of the test chambers than their wild-type counterparts. On the following day session, a first injection of 6 or 12 mg/kg cocaine induced comparable dose-related psychomotor activations in both genotypes, without significant difference in the relative increase in locomotion. Over the following eight once-daily test sessions, the slight psychomotor increase induced by 6 mg/kg was equivalent in both genotypes and constant over the sessions. At 12 mg/kg, cocaine induced a clear-cut incremental responsiveness to cocaine in both genotypes on the three first sessions; on the following sessions, only the wild-types displayed an incremental responsiveness until the last session, a sensitized effect that was confirmed for the wild-types but not for the knockouts on a subsequent sensitization test (cocaine challenge). Finally, the knockouts did not exhibit any sign of cocaine-conditioning (saline challenge), contrarily to the wild-types. It is speculated that MCHR1 may contribute to the neurobiological mechanisms of conditioned cocaine-induced psychomotor effects, possibly to those underpinning sensitization, and to a lesser extent to those sub-serving acute pharmacological cocaine action.