Dopamine transporter blockade during adolescence increases adult dopamine function, impulsivity, and aggression.

Sensitive developmental periods shape neural circuits and enable adaptation. However, they also engender vulnerability to factors that can perturb developmental trajectories. An understanding of sensitive period phenomena and mechanisms separate from sensory system development is still lacking, yet critical to understanding disease etiology and risk. The dopamine system is pivotal in controlling and shaping adolescent behaviors, and it undergoes heightened plasticity during that time, such that interference with dopamine signaling can have long-lasting behavioral consequences. Here we sought to gain mechanistic insight into this dopamine-sensitive period and its impact on behavior. In mice, dopamine transporter (DAT) blockade from postnatal (P) day 22 to 41 increases aggression and sensitivity to amphetamine (AMPH) behavioral stimulation in adulthood. Here, we refined this sensitive window to P32-41 and identified increased firing of dopaminergic neurons in vitro and in vivo as a neural correlate to altered adult behavior. Aggression can result from enhanced impulsivity and cognitive dysfunction, and dopamine regulates working memory and motivated behavior. Hence, we assessed these behavioral domains and found that P32-41 DAT blockade increases impulsivity but has no effect on cognition, working memory, or motivation in adulthood. Lastly, using optogenetics to drive dopamine neurons, we find that increased VTA but not SNc dopaminergic activity mimics the increase in impulsive behavior in the Go/NoGo task observed after adolescent DAT blockade. Together our data provide insight into the developmental origins of aggression and impulsivity that may ultimately improve diagnosis, prevention, and treatment strategies for related neuropsychiatric disorders.

Hippocampal neurogenesis confers stress resilience by inhibiting the ventral dentate gyrus.

Adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is highly regulated by environmental influences, and functionally implicated in behavioural responses to stress and antidepressants1-4. However, how adult-born neurons regulate dentate gyrus information processing to protect from stress-induced anxiety-like behaviour is unknown. Here we show in mice that neurogenesis confers resilience to chronic stress by inhibiting the activity of mature granule cells in the ventral dentate gyrus (vDG), a subregion that is implicated in mood regulation. We found that chemogenetic inhibition of adult-born neurons in the vDG promotes susceptibility to social defeat stress, whereas increasing neurogenesis confers resilience to chronic stress. By using in vivo calcium imaging to record neuronal activity from large cell populations in the vDG, we show that increased neurogenesis results in a decrease in the activity of stress-responsive cells that are active preferentially during attacks or while mice explore anxiogenic environments. These effects on dentate gyrus activity are necessary and sufficient for stress resilience, as direct silencing of the vDG confers resilience whereas excitation promotes susceptibility. Our results suggest that the activity of the vDG may be a key factor in determining individual levels of vulnerability to stress and related psychiatric disorders.

Medial Prefrontal Cortex Serotonin Input Regulates Cognitive Flexibility in Mice.

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regulates cognitive flexibility and emotional behavior. Neurons that release serotonin project to the mPFC, and serotonergic drugs influence emotion and cognition. Yet, the specific roles of endogenous serotonin release in the mPFC on neurophysiology and behavior are unknown. We show that axonal serotonin release in the mPFC directly inhibits the major mPFC output neurons. In serotonergic neurons projecting from the dorsal raphe to the mPFC, we find endogenous activity signatures pre-reward retrieval and at reward retrieval during a cognitive flexibility task. In vivo optogenetic activation of this pathway during pre-reward retrieval selectively improved extradimensional rule shift performance while inhibition impaired it, demonstrating sufficiency and necessity for mPFC serotonin release in cognitive flexibility. Locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior were not affected by either optogenetic manipulation. Collectively, our data reveal a powerful and specific modulatory role of endogenous serotonin release from dorsal raphe-to-mPFC projecting neurons in cognitive flexibility.