45) having significantly higher basal DA levels than adults, but with the conventional method (Philpot and Kirstein, 2004), dialysate DA levels obtained in adolescents were higher than those obtained using the quantitative method (Figure 4; Badanich et al., 2006). Additionally, the quantitative approach revealed lower basal DA levels for early adolescent (PND 35) rats. It should be noted the conventional method reported dialysate DA levels that were not corrected for probe recovery. These results indicate ontogenetic differences in basal DA. Furthermore, different findings for PND 35 rats between the two methods suggest that reuptake and/or metabolic differences for early adolescent rats given that the quantitative method indirectly assesses group differences in reuptake and transporter functioning. These data characterized basal DA levels in naive adolescent rats and suggest basal inherent differences in DA during development may likely impact neurochemical reactivity to early life alcohol exposure and produce long-term consequences in neuronal functioning in adulthood.
