Effects of Early Life Exposure to Sex Hormones on Neurochemical and Behavioral Responses to Psychostimulants in Adulthood: Implications in Drug Addiction

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Georgina M. Renard¹  Raúl Riquelme²  Angélica P. Escobar²  Pedro Espinosa²  Nicole K. Sanguinetti²  Ramón Sotomayor-Zárate²  Maximiliano Elgueta-Reyes²  Jonathan Martínez-Pinto²  Tatiana Dib²  Victoria B. Velásquez² 

[1] Centro de Investigación Biomédica y Aplicada (CIBAP), Escuela de Medicina, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago 9170022, Chile;Laboratorio de Neuroquímica y Neurofarmacología, Centro de Neurobiología y Fisiopatología Integrativa (CENFI), Instituto de Fisiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2360102, Chile;

关键词: dopamine;    sex hormones;    accumbens;    striatum;    amphetamine;    FSCV;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms23126575

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Early life exposure to sex hormones affects several brain areas involved in regulating locomotor and motivation behaviors. Our group has shown that neonatal exposure to testosterone propionate (TP) or estradiol valerate (EV) affected the brain dopamine (DA) system in adulthood. Here, we studied the long-lasting effects of neonatal exposure to sex hormones on behavioral and neurochemical responses to amphetamine (AMPH) and methylphenidate (MPD). Our results show that AMPH-induced locomotor activity was higher in female than male control rats. The conditioned place preference (CPP) to AMPH was only observed in EV male rats. In EV female rats, AMPH did not increase locomotor activity, but MPD-induced CPP was observed in control, EV and TP female rats. Using in vivo brain microdialysis, we observed that AMPH-induced extracellular DA levels were lower in nucleus accumbens (NAcc) of EV and TP female rats than control rats. In addition, MPD did not increase NAcc extracellular DA levels in EV rats. Using in vivo fast-scan cyclic voltammetry in striatum, MPD-induced DA reuptake was higher in EV than control rats. In summary, our results show that early life exposure to sex hormones modulates mesolimbic and nigrostriatal DA neurons producing opposite neurochemical effects induced by psychostimulant drugs in NAcc or striatum.

【 授权许可】

Unknown