Male NMRI mice (8–12 weeks old and 25–35 g body weight; Charles River, Sulzfeld, Germany) were used. NMRI mice were selected as this strain has displayed robust behavioural responses to nicotine in our previous studies, as reflected by activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system (Jerlhag and Engel, 2011 (link); Egecioglu et al., 2013 (link)). It should however be mentioned that other strains of mice, as well as rats, show similar behavioural responses to nicotine (Tzschentke, 1998 (link); Jerlhag and Engel, 2011 (link); Natarajan et al., 2011 (link); Egecioglu et al., 2013 (link); Ignatowska-Jankowska et al., 2013 (link)) and similar effects to sCT (Kalafateli et al., 2020b (link)). The mice were group-housed and maintained at a 12/12-h light/dark cycle; they acclimatized to the animal facility (temperature of 20°C with 50% humidity) one week before experiments. They had ad libitum access to water and standard chow (Teklad Rodent Diet; Envigo, Madison, WI, United States) before and after each experiment. An independent set of age-matched mice was used in each behavioural experiment. For the Western Blot experiments, the mice brains from the repeated sCT-nicotine locomotor sensitisation test were used. All experiments were approved by the Swedish Ethical Committee on Animal Research in Gothenburg (207–2014; 195–2014; 1,457–2018; 3,348–2020).
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