Acute nicotine administration reduces the efficacy of punishment in curbing remifentanil consumption in a seeking-taking chain schedule of reinforcement.

Nicotine administration enhanced both appetitive and consummatory responding for RMF and engendered a punishment-insensitive phenotype for RMF that was less impacted by contingent administration of foot-shock punishment. These findings provide further support for the hypothesis that nicotine augments vulnerability for addiction-like behaviors for opioids.