Recently, observations from our previous studies have shown that exposure of adolescent rats to THC before mating (“germline exposure”) leads to cross-generational behavioral and gene regulation abnormalities in the striatum in the subsequent generation (“F1 offspring”), most likely achieved via impaired epigenetic regulatory processes (Szutorisz et al., 2014; Watson et al., 2015). Based on the observed striatal mRNA disturbances in F1 male progeny, along with the behavioral abnormalities identified in males, we set out to explore whether males and females are uniquely affected in this model. In the current study, we investigate potential sex-specific effects of cross-generational THC exposure on gene expression that could provide biological insights into neuropsychiatric vulnerability that frequently show sex differences in their incidence and course of the disorders.
