Opportunities for risk-taking during play alters cognitive performance and prefrontal inhibitory signalling in rats of both sexes.
anxiety
behavioural inhibition
cognitive flexibility
neurophysiology
prefrontal cortex
risk‐taking
social play behaviour
Journal
The European journal of neuroscience
ISSN: 1460-9568
Titre abrégé: Eur J Neurosci
Pays: France
ID NLM: 8918110
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
21 Mar 2024
21 Mar 2024
Historique:
received:
29
08
2023
accepted:
22
02
2024
medline:
21
3
2024
pubmed:
21
3
2024
entrez:
21
3
2024
Statut:
aheadofprint
Résumé
Social play behaviour is a rewarding activity that can entail risks, thus allowing young individuals to test the limits of their capacities and to train their cognitive and emotional adaptability to challenges. Here, we tested in rats how opportunities for risk-taking during play affect the development of cognitive and emotional capacities and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) function, a brain structure important for risk-based decision making. Male and female rats were housed socially or social play-deprived (SPD) between postnatal day (P)21 and P42. During this period, half of both groups were daily exposed to a high-risk play environment. Around P85, all rats were tested for cognitive performance and emotional behaviour after which inhibitory currents were recorded in layer 5 pyramidal neurons in mPFC slices. We show that playing in a high-risk environment altered cognitive flexibility in both sexes and improved behavioural inhibition in males. High-risk play altered anxiety-like behaviour in the elevated plus maze in males and in the open field in females, respectively. SPD affected cognitive flexibility in both sexes and decreased anxiety-like behaviour in the elevated plus maze in females. We found that synaptic inhibitory currents in the mPFC were increased in male, but not female, rats after high-risk play, while SPD lowered prefrontal cortex (PFC) synaptic inhibition in both sexes. Together, our data show that exposure to risks during play affects the development of cognition, emotional behaviour and inhibition in the mPFC. Furthermore, our study suggests that the opportunity to take risks during play cannot substitute for social play behaviour.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Subventions
Organisme : Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
ID : ALWOP.2015.105
Organisme : Utrecht University strategic theme Dynamics of Youth
Informations de copyright
© 2024 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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