Fig. 2: Females are protected against the detrimental effects of AMPH in adolescence on the maturation of PFC dopamine connectivity and impulse control.

a Experimental timeline. b In adulthood, mice were randomly assigned to have their brains processed for stereological quantification of PFC dopamine innervation (left schematic) or were tested for impulse control in the Go/No-Go task (right schematic). c AMPH in early adolescence does not augment the span of the dopamine input to the cingulate (Cg1), prelimbic (PrL), and infralimbic (IL) subregions of the medial PFC in female mice, in contrast to our previous results in males^54,67. Instead, a decrease in the volume of dopamine input to the PrL is evident (Table 2A). d AMPH in early adolescence does not alter action impulsivity in adulthood in female mice, unlike our previous observations in males⁶⁸. Area under the curve (AUC) analysis indicates that the proportion of commission errors is similar between the AMPH-treated and saline groups (Table 2B, C). e–g Sigmoidal curve fit analysis (Table 2D–F) further revealed that there is no difference in the number of commission errors at the beginning of the task (e, upper asymptote), that both groups began to improve their inhibitory control performance around day 7-8 (f, M50), and that both groups show similar proportion of commission errors during the last sessions (g, lower asymptote). h AMPH in mid-adolescence does not alter the extent of the dopamine input to the Cg1, PrL and IL subregions of the PFC in female mice (Table 2G), despite downregulating Dcc in dopamine neurons (Fig. 1i). i–l In mid-adolescence, females continue to be insensitive to AMPH-induced deficits in action impulsivity, with no differences in the proportion of commission errors in the task (Table 2H–I). i Sigmoidal curve fit analysis (Table 2J–L) revealed that AMPH and saline groups perform equally at the beginning of the task (j, upper asymptote), start showing improvement around day 7-8 (j, M50), and have similar low proportion of commission errors during the last session (l, lower asymptote). All graphs are presented as mean values ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.