Cocaine-induced conditioning place preference is enhanced in prenatally stressed rats: relation between pubertal behavioral traits and individual differences in adult vulnerability to cocaine reward

PASTOR, VERÓNICA; ANTONELLI, MARTA CRISTINA; OLSZEVICKI, SANTIAGO; OLSZEVICKI, SANTIAGO; PALLARÉS, MARÍA EUGENIA; PALLARÉS, MARÍA EUGENIA; PASTOR, VERÓNICA; ANTONELLI, MARTA CRISTINA

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 2nd FALAN Congress; 2016

Prenatal stress (PS) negatively affects the proper progeny development by inducing long-term neurobiological changes which could result in an increased risk to develop a substance use disorder. Nonetheless, no studies today have focused on the relation between pubertal behavioral traits and adult vulnerability to drug reward in PS individuals. We designed the present study to determine if anxiety, social interaction or novelty response during puberty have any relationship with individual differences in cocaine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) during adulthood and the influence of PS on CPP vulnerability. Pregnant dams were randomly assigned to either the non-prenatal stress (NPS) or the PS group. Male offspring were tested for anxiety, social interaction and novelty response during puberty (P35) and left undisturbed until P90, when we trained them in a 4-trial CPP with cocaine (20 mg/kg). Cocaine-treated animals were classified based on their CPP score in LowCPP or HighCPP (i.e., a CPP score below or above the mean of the sample, respectively). In NPS group, HighCPP were more anxious than LowCPP animals during puberty. In contrast, in PS group, HighCPP were less anxious than LowCPP animals, suggesting that the relationship between adolescent anxiety and adult vulnerability to cocaine reward assessed by CPP depends on the exposure of the offspring to PS. We will discuss a mechanistic hypothesis for the increased vulnerability to cocaine reward in PS rats.