scholarly journals Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine Pathways Across Adolescence: Diversity in Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren M. Reynolds ◽  
Cecilia Flores
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Brain Development ◽  
Behavioral Functioning ◽  
Psychiatric Disease ◽  
Dopamine System ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine System ◽  
Dopamine Circuits ◽  
Neurochemical Changes ◽  
Developmental Window

Mesocorticolimbic dopamine circuity undergoes a protracted maturation during adolescent life. Stable adult levels of behavioral functioning in reward, motivational, and cognitive domains are established as these pathways are refined, however, their extended developmental window also leaves them vulnerable to perturbation by environmental factors. In this review, we highlight recent advances in understanding the mechanisms underlying dopamine pathway development in the adolescent brain, and how the environment influences these processes to establish or disrupt neurocircuit diversity. We further integrate these recent studies into the larger historical framework of anatomical and neurochemical changes occurring during adolescence in the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system. While dopamine neuron heterogeneity is increasingly appreciated at molecular, physiological, and anatomical levels, we suggest that a developmental facet may play a key role in establishing vulnerability or resilience to environmental stimuli and experience in distinct dopamine circuits, shifting the balance between healthy brain development and susceptibility to psychiatric disease.

Brain Development and the Risk for Substance Abuse

2013 ◽  
pp. 706-715
Author(s):  
Kristina Caudle ◽  
B.J. Casey
Keyword(s):  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Brain Development ◽  
Substance Use Disorders ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Substance Abuse Problem ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Drug And Alcohol ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Developmental Window

Drug and alcohol dependence affects millions each year. Adolescence is a period of increased risk for substance use disorders. Understanding how the brain is changing during this developmental window relative to childhood and adulthood and how these changes vary across individuals is critical for predicting risk of later substance abuse and dependence. This chapter provides an overview of recent human imaging and animal studies of brain development focusing on changes in corticostriatal circuitry that has been implicated in addiction. Behavioral, clinical, and neurobiological evidence is provided to help elucidate who may be most at risk for developing a substance abuse problem and whenthey may be most vulnerable.

Environmental factors, brain development, and intelligence in adulthood

2009 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-267
Author(s):  
Marc Tardieu ◽  
Yann Mikaeloff
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Brain Development

Early life environment: does it have implications for predisposition to disease?

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 292-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nola Shanks
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Immune Function ◽  
Hpa Axis ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Inflammatory Responses ◽  
Psychiatric Disease ◽  
Disease Etiology ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Postnatal Factors

Early life environmental factors have been associated with altered predisposition to a variety of pathologies. A considerable literature examines pre- and postnatal factors associated with increased risk of cardiovascular, metabolic (i.e. insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia) and psychiatric disease, and the importance of hormonal programming. The brain is exquisitely sensitive to environmental inputs during development and the stress responsiveness of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis has been shown to be both up- and down-regulated by early life exposure to limited nutrition, stress, altered maternal behaviors, synthetic steroids and inflammation. It has been suggested that peri-natal programming of HPA axis regulation might therefore contribute to metabolic and psychiatric disease etiology. In addition, glucocorticoids play modulatory roles regulating many aspects of immune function, notably controlling both acute and chronic inflammatory responses. Neuroendocrine–immune communication is bidirectional, and therefore it is expected that environmental factors altering HPA regulation have implications for stress effects on immune function and predisposition to inflammation. The impact of pre- and postnatal factors altering immune function, stress responsivity and predisposition to inflammatory disease are reviewed. It is also examined whether the early ‘immune environment’ might similarly influence predisposition to disease and alter neuroendocrine function. Evidence indicating a role for early life inflammation and infection as an important factor programming the neuroendocrine–immune axis and altering predisposition to disease is considered.

Neurotensin and the Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine System

1988 ◽  
Vol 537 (1 The Mesocorti) ◽  
pp. 397-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
GARTH BISSETTE ◽  
CHARLES B. NEMEROFF
Keyword(s):  
Dopamine System ◽  
Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine System

scholarly journals Gestational IV nicotine produces elevated brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system of adolescent rat offspring

Synapse ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (12) ◽  
pp. 1382-1392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Harrod ◽  
Ryan T. Lacy ◽  
Jun Zhu ◽  
Benjamin A. Hughes ◽  
Marla K. Perna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neurotrophic Factor ◽  
Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor ◽  
Dopamine System ◽  
Rat Offspring ◽  
Mesocorticolimbic Dopamine System

scholarly journals Characterizing the nuclear and cytoplasmic transcriptomes in developing and mature human cortex uncovers new insight into psychiatric disease gene regulation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda J. Price ◽  
Taeyoung Hwang ◽  
Ran Tao ◽  
Emily E. Burke ◽  
Anandita Rajpurohi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Development ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Adult Brain ◽  
Developmental Expression ◽  
Psychiatric Disease ◽  
Nuclear Pore ◽  
Nuclear Retention ◽  
Gene Sets ◽  
The Brain

AbstractTranscriptome compartmentalization by the nuclear membrane provides both stochastic and functional buffering of transcript activity in the cytoplasm and has recently been implicated in neurodegenerative disease processes. Although many mechanisms regulating transcript compartmentalization are also prevalent in brain development, the extent to which subcellular localization differs as the brain matures has yet to be addressed. To characterize the nuclear and cytoplasmic transcriptomes during brain development, we sequenced both RNA fractions from homogenate prenatal and adult human postmortem cortex using PolyA+ and RiboZero library preparation methods. We find that while many genes are differentially expressed by fraction and developmental expression changes are similarly detectable in nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA, the compartmented transcriptomes become more distinct as the brain matures, perhaps reflecting increased utilization of nuclear retention as a regulatory strategy in adult brain. We examined potential mechanisms of this developmental divergence including alternative splicing, RNA editing, nuclear pore composition, RNA binding protein motif enrichment, and RNA secondary structure. Intron retention is associated with greater nuclear abundance in a subset of transcripts, as is enrichment for several splicing factor binding motifs. Finally, we examined disease association with fraction-regulated gene sets and found nuclear-enriched genes were also preferentially enriched in gene sets associated with neurodevelopmental psychiatric diseases. These results suggest that although gene-level expression is globally comparable between fractions, nuclear retention of transcripts may play an underappreciated role in developmental regulation of gene expression in brain, particularly in genes whose dysregulation is related to neuropsychiatric disorders.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document