Cadmium Increases the Sensitivity of Adolescent Female Mice to Nicotine-Related Behavioral Deficits

Figure 5

Latency of fall (LOF) in rotarod test for motor function. Treatment with nicotine increased the latency of fall significantly (↑motor function) when compared with the control group (). This is attributed to the role of nicotine in stimulating cholinergic receptors at neuromuscular junctions and increasing epinephrine release. The cadmium () and nicotine-cadmium () treated groups showed a significant decrease in motor function (↓LOF) when compared with the control and nicotine treated group (). Subsequent analysis shows that nicotine-cadmium treatment reduced motor function significantly when compared with nicotine () and cadmium () treatment groups, respectively (statistical significance: , , and ).