Chunk #10 — 3. Results — 3.1. Cross-generational THC exposure leads to developmental gene expression abnormalities in the striatum of male and female offspring
Based on our initial findings (Szutorisz et al., 2014; Watson et al., 2015) and considering the central role of striatal circuitry in behaviors related to reward processing, motivation, emotion and motor activity (Everitt and Robbins, 2005; Girault, 2012; Koob and Volkow, 2010), we focused on studying gene expression profiles of the dorsal and ventral striatum (nucleus accumbens) in F1 subjects of parents with a prior history of adolescent THC or vehicle exposure. Different lines of evidence in our earlier work (Szutorisz et al., 2014; Watson et al., 2015) had already demonstrated alterations in the striatum as a consequence of germline THC exposure and the observed striatal changes pointed especially in the direction of components of the glutamatergic system and molecules relevant to synaptic plasticity.
