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Wright EC, Luo PX, Zakharenkov HC, Serna Godoy A, Lake AA, Prince ZD, Sekar S, Culkin HI, Ramirez AV, Dwyer T, Kapoor A, Corbett C, Tian L, Fox AS, Trainor BC. Sexual differentiation of neural mechanisms of stress sensitivity during puberty. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2306475120. [PMID: 37847733 PMCID: PMC10614610 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306475120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/12/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Anxiety disorders are a major public health concern and current treatments are inadequate for many individuals. Anxiety is more common in women than men and this difference arises during puberty. Sex differences in physiological stress responses may contribute to this variability. During puberty, gonadal hormones shape brain structure and function, but the extent to which these changes affect stress sensitivity is unknown. We examined how pubertal androgens shape behavioral and neural responses to social stress in California mice (Peromyscus californicus), a model species for studying sex differences in stress responses. In adults, social defeat reduces social approach and increases social vigilance in females but not males. We show this sex difference is absent in juveniles, and that prepubertal castration sensitizes adult males to social defeat. Adult gonadectomy does not alter behavioral responses to defeat, indicating that gonadal hormones act during puberty to program behavioral responses to stress in adulthood. Calcium imaging in the medioventral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) showed that social threats increased neural activity and that prepubertal castration generalized these responses to less threatening social contexts. These results support recent hypotheses that the BNST responds to immediate threats. Prepubertal treatment with the nonaromatizable androgen dihydrotestosterone acts in males and females to reduce the effects of defeat on social approach and vigilance in adults. These data indicate that activation of androgen receptors during puberty is critical for programming behavioral responses to stress in adulthood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily C. Wright
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Pei X. Luo
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | | | | | - Alyssa A. Lake
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Zhana D. Prince
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Shwetha Sekar
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Hannah I. Culkin
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | | | - Tjien Dwyer
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Amita Kapoor
- Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI53715
| | - Cody Corbett
- Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI53715
| | - Lin Tian
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Andrew S. Fox
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
- California National Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis, CA95616
| | - Brian C. Trainor
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA95616
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Eckstein MK, Master SL, Dahl RE, Wilbrecht L, Collins AGE. Reinforcement learning and Bayesian inference provide complementary models for the unique advantage of adolescents in stochastic reversal. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2022; 55:101106. [PMID: 35537273 PMCID: PMC9108470 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2021] [Revised: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 03/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
During adolescence, youth venture out, explore the wider world, and are challenged to learn how to navigate novel and uncertain environments. We investigated how performance changes across adolescent development in a stochastic, volatile reversal-learning task that uniquely taxes the balance of persistence and flexibility. In a sample of 291 participants aged 8-30, we found that in the mid-teen years, adolescents outperformed both younger and older participants. We developed two independent cognitive models, based on Reinforcement learning (RL) and Bayesian inference (BI). The RL parameter for learning from negative outcomes and the BI parameters specifying participants' mental models were closest to optimal in mid-teen adolescents, suggesting a central role in adolescent cognitive processing. By contrast, persistence and noise parameters improved monotonically with age. We distilled the insights of RL and BI using principal component analysis and found that three shared components interacted to form the adolescent performance peak: adult-like behavioral quality, child-like time scales, and developmentally-unique processing of positive feedback. This research highlights adolescence as a neurodevelopmental window that can create performance advantages in volatile and uncertain environments. It also shows how detailed insights can be gleaned by using cognitive models in new ways.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Ronald E Dahl
- Institute of Human Development, 2121 Berkeley Way West, USA
| | - Linda Wilbrecht
- Department of Psychology, 2121 Berkeley Way West, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, 175 Li Ka Shing Center, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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Delevich K, Klinger M, Okada NJ, Wilbrecht L. Coming of age in the frontal cortex: The role of puberty in cortical maturation. Semin Cell Dev Biol 2021; 118:64-72. [PMID: 33985902 DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2021.04.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2021] [Revised: 04/20/2021] [Accepted: 04/22/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Across species, adolescence is a period of growing independence that is associated with the maturation of cognitive, social, and affective processing. Reorganization of neural circuits within the frontal cortex is believed to contribute to the emergence of adolescent changes in cognition and behavior. While puberty coincides with adolescence, relatively little is known about which aspects of frontal cortex maturation are driven by pubertal development and gonadal hormones. In this review, we highlight existing work that suggests puberty plays a role in the maturation of specific cell types in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rodents, and highlight possible routes by which gonadal hormones influence frontal cortical circuit development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristen Delevich
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
| | - Madeline Klinger
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Nana J Okada
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Linda Wilbrecht
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
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4
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Delevich K, Okada NJ, Rahane A, Zhang Z, Hall CD, Wilbrecht L. Sex and Pubertal Status Influence Dendritic Spine Density on Frontal Corticostriatal Projection Neurons in Mice. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:3543-3557. [PMID: 32037445 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
In humans, nonhuman primates, and rodents, the frontal cortices exhibit grey matter thinning and dendritic spine pruning that extends into adolescence. This maturation is believed to support higher cognition but may also confer psychiatric vulnerability during adolescence. Currently, little is known about how specific cell types in the frontal cortex mature or whether puberty plays a role in the maturation of some cell types but not others. Here, we used mice to characterize the spatial topography and adolescent development of cross-corticostriatal (cSTR) neurons that project through the corpus collosum to the dorsomedial striatum. We found that apical spine density on cSTR neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex decreased significantly between late juvenile (P29) and young adult time points (P60), with females exhibiting higher spine density than males at both ages. Adult males castrated prior to puberty onset had higher spine density compared to sham controls. Adult females ovariectomized before puberty onset showed greater variance in spine density measures on cSTR cells compared to controls, but their mean spine density did not significantly differ from sham controls. Our findings reveal that these cSTR neurons, a subtype of the broader class of intratelencephalic-type neurons, exhibit significant sex differences and suggest that spine pruning on cSTR neurons is regulated by puberty in male mice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristen Delevich
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Nana J Okada
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Ameet Rahane
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Zicheng Zhang
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Christopher D Hall
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Linda Wilbrecht
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA and.,Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
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Master SL, Eckstein MK, Gotlieb N, Dahl R, Wilbrecht L, Collins AGE. Distentangling the systems contributing to changes in learning during adolescence. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2020; 41:100732. [PMID: 31826837 PMCID: PMC6994540 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100732] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2019] [Revised: 09/23/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Multiple neurocognitive systems contribute simultaneously to learning. For example, dopamine and basal ganglia (BG) systems are thought to support reinforcement learning (RL) by incrementally updating the value of choices, while the prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes different computations, such as actively maintaining precise information in working memory (WM). It is commonly thought that WM and PFC show more protracted development than RL and BG systems, yet their contributions are rarely assessed in tandem. Here, we used a simple learning task to test how RL and WM contribute to changes in learning across adolescence. We tested 187 subjects ages 8 to 17 and 53 adults (25-30). Participants learned stimulus-action associations from feedback; the learning load was varied to be within or exceed WM capacity. Participants age 8-12 learned slower than participants age 13-17, and were more sensitive to load. We used computational modeling to estimate subjects' use of WM and RL processes. Surprisingly, we found more protracted changes in RL than WM during development. RL learning rate increased with age until age 18 and WM parameters showed more subtle, gender- and puberty-dependent changes early in adolescence. These results can inform education and intervention strategies based on the developmental science of learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah L Master
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, United States
| | - Maria K Eckstein
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, United States
| | - Neta Gotlieb
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, United States
| | - Ronald Dahl
- Institute of Human Development and School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, United States
| | - Linda Wilbrecht
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, United States; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, United States
| | - Anne G E Collins
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, United States; Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, United States
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