Effects of sex, stress and prenatal cocaine exposure on soial interaction and dopamine release in ad (2012)
Undergraduates: Hung-Yu Chen, Anna DeFrancesco
Faculty Advisor: Donita Robinson
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience
Adolescence is a period characterized by rapid hormonal, neural, behavioral and social development, and social interaction is important for the transition into adulthood. Past research suggests social deprivation during adolescnece could lead to social and cognitive deficits, and prenatal cocaine exposure altered certain aspects of social interaction such as longer delay to repciprocate social contact in adult rats and shorter duration of social interaction in adolescent rats. We investigated the effect of sex, social stress and prenatal cocaine exposure on social interaction and showed that male rats had more play behavior than female rats, regardless of social stress and treatment condition. Also, social deprivation led to more play and contact behavior, collapsed across sex and treatment condition. We did not find an effect of prenatal cocaine exposure. Next, we investigated the role of the mesolimbimc dopamine system in social interaction. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines fast dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens of female rats during social interaction. Our data revealed a sex difference: the frequency of dopamine release increased during social interaction from baseline in females but not in males.