Antipsychotics in Adolescence May Alter Adult Dopamine Pathways

An important developmental question is whether time-limited antipsychotic exposure during adolescence produces brain changes persisting into adulthood. Investigators examined this problem by testing adult rats on conditioned avoidance response (CAR) after brief exposure in adolescence to olanzapine or clozapine.

For CAR testing, adolescent animals were trained on an unconditioned stimulus (foot-shock) and a conditioned stimulus (white-noise tone). Afterward, the animals received 5 days of high or low doses of olanzapine, clozapine, or vehicle; the CAR was then repeated after a challenge (i.e., lower) drug dose. The same rodents underwent CAR retraining and testing with drug rechallenge at two adulthood time points.

Compared with vehicle, both…