Divergent prefrontal dopaminergic mechanisms mediate drug- and fear-associated cue extinction during adolescence versus adulthood

Cue-associated learning is vital to guiding behaviour for survival. Adolescence represents a key developmental stage for perturbations in cue-related learning, including a characteristic deficit in cue extinction learning. The present review summarizes evidence from animal and human literature that cue extinction is critically mediated by prefrontal dopamine, a system that undergoes dramatic reorganization during adolescence. We propose that extinction learning and memory is governed by a developmentally dynamic balance of dopamine receptors in the prefrontal cortex, which changes across adolescence into adulthood.
Source: European Neuropsychopharmacology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: REVIEW Source Type: research