Christie D. Fowler is a neuroscientist whose experimental work includes the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in controlling nicotine intake. In a 2011 study, mice lacking the receptor subunit consumed more nicotine; restoring the subunit in the medial habenula corrected this phenotype. Reducing the subunit locally in rats produced a corresponding change in intake.[ref]
Habenular α5 nicotinic receptor subunit signalling controls nicotine intake by Christie D. Fowler and others. Abstract and Figures 1–3; author contributions identify Fowler's roles in experimental design, experiments, analysis and writing.
The combination of gene knockout and localized genetic rescue provides an illuminating experimental comparison: deleting a component throughout an animal shows that it matters, while restoring it in one brain region helps locate a sufficient site of action for the measured phenotype. The rat experiments further distinguished nicotine's rewarding effects from the inhibitory effects of higher doses. Loss of the latter signal helped explain increased intake; the result cannot simply be summarized as an increase in reward at every dose.[ref]
Habenular α5 nicotinic receptor subunit signalling controls nicotine intake by Christie D. Fowler and others. Figures 2–3: rescue and comparison of reward-enhancing versus reward-inhibiting effects.
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