Amphetamine disrupts dopamine axon growth in adolescence by a sex-specific mechanism in mice.

Initiating drug use during adolescence increases the risk of developing addiction or other psychopathologies later in life, with long-term outcomes varying according to sex and exact timing of use. The cellular and molecular underpinnings explaining this differential sensitivity to detrimental drug effects remain unexplained. The Netrin-1/DCC guidance cue system segregates cortical and limbic dopamine pathways in adolescence.

Review: Impact of urgent youth outpatient mental health care on patient and health system outcomes - a scoping review.

Background: Young people often face barriers to psychiatric care and are increasingly seeking crisis services for mental health issues through the emergency department (ED). Urgent psychiatric care models provide youth in crisis with rapid access to time-limited mental health care on an outpatient basis. This scoping review aims to evaluate the impact of such urgent psychiatric services for youth aged 13-25 on patient and health system outcomes.

The Implicit Association Test in health professions education: A meta-narrative review.

Introduction: Implicit bias is a growing area of interest among educators. Educational strategies used to elicit awareness of implicit biases commonly include the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Although the topic of implicit bias is gaining increased attention, emerging critique of the IAT suggests the need to subject its use to greater theoretical and empirical scrutiny.

Implicit Bias and the Feedback Paradox: Exploring How Health Professionals Engage With Feedback While Questioning Its Credibility.

Purpose: Learners and practicing health professionals may dismiss emotionally charged feedback related to self, yet little research has examined how to address feedback that threatens an individual's identity. The implicit association test (IAT) provides feedback to individuals regarding their implicit biases. Anticipating feedback about implicit bias might be emotionally charged for mental health professionals, this study explored their experience of taking the IAT and receiving their results, to better understand the challenges of identity-threatening feedback.

Striving While Accepting: Exploring the Relationship Between Identity and Implicit Bias Recognition and Management.

Purpose: Implicit biases worsen outcomes for underserved and marginalized populations. Once health professionals are made aware of their implicit biases, a process ensues where they must reconcile this information with their personal and professional identities. The authors sought to explore how identity influences the process of implicit bias recognition and management.

Early Adolescence is a Critical Period for the Maturation of Inhibitory Behavior.

Psychiatric conditions marked by impairments in cognitive control often emerge during adolescence, when the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and its inputs undergo structural and functional maturation and are vulnerable to disruption by external events. It is not known, however, whether there exists a specific temporal window within the broad range of adolescence when the development of PFC circuitry and its related behaviors are sensitive to disruption. Here we show, in male mice, that repeated exposure to amphetamine during early adolescence leads to impaired behavioral inhibition, aberrant PFC dopamine connectivity, and reduced PFC dopamine function in adulthood.

DCC Receptors Drive Prefrontal Cortex Maturation by Determining Dopamine Axon Targeting in Adolescence.

Background: Dopaminergic input to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) increases throughout adolescence and, by establishing precisely localized synapses, calibrates cognitive function. However, why and how mesocortical dopamine axon density increases across adolescence remains unknown.

Methods: We used a developmental application of axon-initiated recombination to label and track the growth of dopamine axons across adolescence in mice.