Adolescence is a complex developmental period characterized by sexual and brain maturation. Stress during adolescence, as abandonment and social isolation, interferes with maturation of higher brain functions such as decision making, learning and memory. Since rats are social animals, we investigate the consequences of housing rats individually during adolescence on the development of addictive behaviors. From postnatal day 23 (weaning), male and female rats were either housed in groups of the same sex or single housed throughout the experiments. At day 35 they were tested for their locomotor response to cocaine (15 mg/kg). Our results indicate that isolation during adolescence increases the locomotor response to cocaine in drug‐naive female rats. Unlike females rats, isolation during the adolescence does not affect the initial locomotor response to cocaine in males. However, these prepubertal males that normally do not show cocaine sensitization at this age, sensitized to cocaine when reared in isolation during adolescence. These results show that rearing rats in isolation exacerbates the behavioral effects of cocaine, and that the effect varies according to the sex of the animal. They also advocate for closer monitoring of neglected and solitary adolescents since they may be at a higher risk to develop drug dependency.Support or Funding InformationThis work supported by NSF under grant #OISE1545803.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by neuronal growth. Environmental factors such as maternal neglect, social stress and drugs of abuse have a direct impact on future behavioral patterns. Because rats are highly social animals, we decided to investigate if isolation stress during adolescence increases conditioned place preference (CPP) to drugs of abuse. Since lower D2 receptor expression in the mesocorticolimbic system is known to increase cocaine conditioning in adult animals, and because adolescents and adults differ in dopaminergic connectivity and D2 receptor populations, we investigated if D2 receptors are altered during these conditions. Female rats were weaned at postnatal day 23 and housed singly or in pairs. At day 34 rats were tested in an open field, at day 35 in an elevated plus maze and at day 36 they were tested for CPP to cocaine (15mg/kg). At post‐natal day 48, rats were euthanized, brains collected and stored at −80°C. Single‐housed rats showed greater conditioning to cocaine when compared to group‐housed rats. This suggest that housing rats singly increases the rewarding properties of cocaine. Single‐housed rats also show lower D2 receptor immunoreactivity in the Nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the Prefrontal cortex (PFC) when compared to group‐housed rats. This correlates with the greater conditioning observed in single housed rats. Isolation stress had the effect of lowering D2 receptor populations in the NAc and PFC thus augmenting the rewarding properties of cocaine in adolescent female rats. Chronic stress during adolescence thus can lower D2 receptors and could be a determining factor in substance abuse and relapse. Support or Funding Information Financial assistance was provided by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) of NSF through the Partnerships for Research and Education (PIRE) Program (OISE‐#1545803).
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