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

PALLARES, ME.; OLSZEVICKI S; PASTOR V; ANTONELLI, MC

Buenos Aires

Congreso; II Congreso de la Federación de Sociedades Latinoamericanas de Neurociencias (FALAN; 2016

FALAN

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 prenatally stressed individuals. We designed the present study to determine if anxiety or novelty-induced locomotor activity during puberty have any relationship with individual differences to 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 animals were more anxious than LowCPP animals during puberty. In contrast, in PS group, HighCPP animals 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 gestational stress. Considering our group and others previously reported PS-induced changes on mesolimbic dopaminergic system, we will discuss a mechanistic hypothesis for the increased vulnerability to cocaine reward in prenatally stressed rats.