A Comparison of the Short- and Long-Term Effects of Corticosterone Exposure on Extinction in Adolescence Versus Adulthood

Human and nonhuman adolescents have impaired retention of extinction of learned fear, relative to juveniles and adults. It is unknown whether exposure to stress affects extinction differently in adolescents versus adults. These experiments compared the short-and long-term effects of exposure to the stress-related hormone corticosterone (CORT) on the extinction of learned fear in adolescent and adult rats. Across all experiments, adolescent and adult rats were trained to exhibit good extinction retention by giving extinction training across 2 consecutive days. Despite this extra training, adolescents exposed to 1 week of CORT (200 mu g/ml) in their drinking water showed impaired extinction retention when trained shortly after the CORT was removed (Experiment 1a). In contrast, adult rats exposed to CORT (200 mu g/ml) for the same duration did not exhibit deficits in extinction retention (Experiment 1b). Exposing adolescents to half the amount of CORT (100 mu g/ml; Experiment 1c) for 1 week similarly disrupted extinction retention. Extinction impairments in adult rats were only observed after 3 weeks, rather than 1 week, of CORT (200 mu g/ml; Experiment 1d). Remarkably, however, adult rats showed impaired extinction retention if they had been exposed to 1 week of CORT (200 mu g/ml) during adolescence (Experiment 2). Finally, exposure to 3 weeks of CORT (200 mu g/ml) in adulthood led to long-lasting extinction deficits after a 6-week drug-free period (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that although CORT disrupts both short-and long-term extinction retention in adolescents and adults, adolescents may be more vulnerable to these effects because of the maturation of stress-sensitive brain regions.