ArticleJournal of neurophysiology2012
Dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area fire faster in adolescent rats than in adults.
Article in Journal of neurophysiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
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Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Neural Representations of Reward-Related Memories Shift across Development.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
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- Adolescent nicotine exposure and persistent neurocircuitry changes: unveiling lifelong psychiatric risks.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Review
- Effects of adolescent morphine exposure on brain stimulation reward sensitivity and dopamine neuron excitability.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- Effects of maternal separation on punishment-driven risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2025Article
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- A mathematical model for the role of dopamine-D2 self-regulation in the production of ultradian rhythms.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Annual Research Review: Puberty and the development of anhedonia - considering childhood adversity and inflammation.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2024Review
- Alprazolam exposure during adolescence induces long-lasting dysregulation in reward sensitivity to morphine and second messenger signaling in the VTA-NAc pathway.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Schizophrenia Animal Modeling with Epidermal Growth Factor and Its Homologs: Their Connections to the Inflammatory Pathway and the Dopamine System.Biomolecules · 2023Review
- The Role of Oxytocin in Abnormal Brain Development: Effect on Glial Cells and Neuroinflammation.Cells · 2022Review
- Adolescent reinforcement-learning trajectories predict cocaine-taking behaviors in adult male and female rats.Psychopharmacology · 2022Article
- The role of dopamine and endocannabinoid systems in prefrontal cortex development: Adolescence as a critical period.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- Adolescent Dopamine Neurons Represent Reward Differently during Action and State Guided Learning.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
- Adult food choices depend on sex and exposure to early-life stress: Underlying brain circuitry, adipose tissue adaptations and metabolic responses.Neurobiology of stress · 2021Article
- Binge-like Alcohol Exposure in Adolescence: Behavioural, Neuroendocrine and Molecular Evidence of Abnormal Neuroplasticity… and Return.Biomedicines · 2021Article
- Age-dependent effects of protein restriction on dopamine release.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine Pathways Across Adolescence: Diversity in Development.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2021Review
- Comparing dopamine release, uptake, and D2 autoreceptor function across the ventromedial to dorsolateral striatum in adolescent and adult male and female rats.Neuropharmacology · 2020Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Adolescence may be a period of vulnerability to drug addiction. In rats, elevated firing activity of ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons predicts enhanced addiction liability. Our aim was to determine if dopamine neurons are more active in adolescents than in adults and to examine mechanisms underlying any age-related difference. VTA dopamine neurons fired faster in adolescents than in adults as measured with in vivo extracellular recordings. Dopamine neuron firing can be divided into nonbursting (single spikes) and bursting activity (clusters of high-frequency spikes). Nonbursting activity was higher in adolescents compared with adults. Frequency of burst events did not differ between ages, but bursts were longer in adolescents than in adults. Elevated dopamine neuron firing in adolescent rats was also observed in cell-attached recordings in ex vivo brain slices. Using whole cell recordings, we found that passive and active membrane properties were similar across ages. Hyperpolarization-activated cation currents and small-conductance calcium-activated potassium channel currents were also comparable across ages. We found no difference in dopamine D2-class autoreceptor function across ages, although the high baseline firing in adolescents resulted in autoreceptor activation being less effective at silencing neurons. Finally, AMPA receptor-mediated spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents occurred at lower frequency in adolescents; GABA(A) receptor-mediated spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents occurred at both lower frequency and smaller amplitude in adolescents. In conclusion, VTA dopamine neurons fire faster in adolescence, potentially because GABA tone increases as rats reach adulthood. This elevation of firing rate during adolescence is consistent with it representing a vulnerable period for developing drug addiction.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.