Reward Deficiency Syndrome that arises when the reward system under-responds to natural or drug rewards and is hypothesized to increase reward seeking behaviors, such as risk taking and novelty seeking [32]. This idea is supported by observations that alcohol-induced changes to the dopaminergic system correlate with increased alcohol seeking behavior and voluntary consumption by adult rats that were exposed to alcohol at adolescence [23,31]. In these models, adults appear less sensitive to alcohol's effects on dopamine release and D2 receptor expression [27,31], indicating that the unique developmental state of the adolescent mesocorticolimbic reward system makes it particularly vulnerable to alcohol and risk for addiction.
