Adolescent risk taking, cocaine self-administration, and striatal dopamine signaling.

ABSTRACT: Poor decision making and elevated risk taking, particularly during adolescence, have been strongly linked to drug use; however the causal relationships among these factors are not well understood. To address these relationships, a rat model (the Risky Decision-making Task; RDT) was used to determine whether individual differences in risk taking during adolescence predict later propensity for cocaine self-administration and/or whether cocaine self-administration causes alterations in risk taking. In addition, the RDT was used to determine how risk taking is modulated by dopamine signaling, particularly in the striatum. Results from these experiments indicated that greater risk taking during adolescence predicted greater intake of cocaine during acquisition of self-administration in adulthoo

SUBMITTER: Mitchell MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3924529 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature