Prenatal and postnatal cocaine exposure enhances the anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors in rats: An ontogenetic study
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
Description
Prenatal and postnatal exposure to drugs such as cocaine is a public health problem that causes deficits in brain development and function in humans and animals. One of the main effects of prenatal and postnatal cocaine exposure is increased vulnerability to developing the substance use disorder at an early age. Furthermore, the negative emotional states associated with cocaine withdrawal increase the fragility of patients to relapse into drug abuse. In this sense, prenatal and postnatal cocaine exposure enhanced the cocaine- and nicotine-induced locomotor activity and locomotor sensitization, and rats exposed prenatally to cocaine displayed an increase in anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors in adulthood (PND 60-70).