Development of network oscillations through adolescence in male and female rats

The primary aim of this research was to study the developmental trajectory of oscillatory synchronization in neural networks of normal healthy rats during adolescence, corresponding to the vulnerable age of schizophrenia prodrome in human. To monitor the development of oscillatory networks through adolescence we used a “pseudo-longitudinal” design. Recordings were performed in terminal experiments under urethane anesthesia, every day from PN32 to PN52 using rats-siblings from the same mother, to reduce individual innate differences between subjects. We found that hippocampal theta power decreased and delta power in prefrontal cortex increased through adolescence, indicating that the oscillations in the two different frequency bands follow distinct developmental trajectories to reach the characteristic oscillatory activity found in adults. Perhaps even more importantly, theta rhythm showed age-dependent stabilization toward late adolescence. Furthermore, sex differences was found in both networks, more prominent in the prefrontal cortex compared with hippocampus. Delta increase was stronger in females and theta stabilization was completed earlier in females, in postnatal days PN41-47, while in males it was only completed in late adolescence. Our finding of a protracted maturation of theta-generating networks in late adolescence is overall consistent with the findings of longitudinal studies in human adolescents, in which oscillatory networks demonstrated a similar pattern of maturation.