Social stress during adolescence activates long-term microglia inflammation insult in reward processing nuclei

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 26;13(10):e0206421. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206421. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The experience of social stress during adolescence is associated with higher vulnerability to drug use. Increases in the acquisition of cocaine self-administration, in the escalation of cocaine-seeking behavior, and in the conditioned rewarding effects of cocaine have been observed in rodents exposed to repeated social defeat (RSD). In addition, prolonged or severe stress induces a proinflammatory state with microglial activation and increased cytokine production. The aim of the present work was to describe the long-term effects induced by RSD during adolescence on the neuroinflammatory response and synaptic structure by evaluating different glial and neuronal markers. In addition to an increase in the conditioned rewarding effects of cocaine, our results showed that RSD in adolescence produced inflammatory reactivity in microglia that is prolonged into adulthood, affecting astrocytes and neurons of two reward-processing areas of the brain (the prelimbic cortex, and the nucleus accumbens core). Considered as a whole these results suggest that social stress experience modulates vulnerability to suffer a loss of glia-supporting functions and neuronal functional synaptic density due to drug consumption in later life.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Astrocytes / drug effects
  • Astrocytes / pathology
  • Brain / drug effects
  • Brain / pathology*
  • Cell Count
  • Cocaine / pharmacology
  • Conditioning, Psychological / drug effects
  • Inflammation / psychology
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Microglia / drug effects
  • Microglia / pathology*
  • Neurons / drug effects
  • Neurons / pathology
  • Reward*
  • Stress, Psychological / pathology*
  • Stress, Psychological / psychology*

Substances

  • Cocaine

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Dirección General de Investigación, PSI2014-51847-R to JM and PSI 2017-83023-R to MR; Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Red de Trastornos Adictivos (RTA) (RETICS RD2012/0028/0021 to MPV; RD16/0017/0007 to JM) and Unión Europea, Fondos FEDER “A way to build Europe”; GRUPOS UCM-BSCH 951579 to MPV. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.