Journal
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY
Volume 53, Issue 7, Pages 724-731Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1002/dev.20543
Keywords
postnatal development; working memory; adolescence; perseveration; t-maze; prefrontal cortex
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Funding
- National Institute on Aging [AG022499]
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [AA017354]
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The prefrontal cortex continues to develop throughout adolescence in several species, and our laboratory has demonstrated that during adolescence there is a decrease in neurons in the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). A PFC-dependent task, the delayed alternation task, was used in the present study to examine the function of the mPFC while it is still maturing in rats of both sexes. A deficit was found in adolescents when compared to adults during 15- and 60-s delays but not at other delays (5, 10, 30, and 90 s). Furthermore, adolescents committed more perseverative errors. No significant sex differences occurred at any delay for either age group; however, in the no delay training sessions, adolescent males reached criterion faster than females. These results indicate that performance on a mPFC-dependent task improves between adolescence and adulthood. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 53: 724-731, 2011.
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