Decreased prefrontal cortex dopamine activity following adolescent social defeat in male rats: role of dopamine D2 receptors.

Rationale: Adverse social experience in adolescence causes reduced medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) dopamine (DA) and associated behavioral deficits in early adulthood.

Objective: This study aims to determine whether mPFC DA hypofunction following social stress is specific to adolescent experience and if this results from stress-induced DA D2 receptor activation.

Materials And Methods: Male rats exposed to repeated social defeat during adolescence or adulthood had mPFC DA activity sampled 17 days later.

Adolescent social defeat decreases spatial working memory performance in adulthood.

Background: Adolescent social stress is associated with increased incidence of mental illnesses in adulthood that are characterized by deficits in cognitive focus and flexibility. Such enhanced vulnerability may be due to psychosocial stress-induced disruption of the developing mesocortical dopamine system, which plays a fundamental role in facilitating complex cognitive processes such as spatial working memory. Adolescent rats exposed to repeated social defeat as a model of social stress develop dopaminergic hypofunction in the medial prefrontal cortex as adults.