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Abstract
Adolescence is a critical period for neurodevelopment, where environmental factors have long-term effects on the brain. Increased consumption of a Western Diet (WD) has raised concern regarding long-term cognitive consequences. This study investigated how adolescent WD consumption influences the adult brain and behavior, particularly impulsive action for sucrose. We further investigated how an adolescent WD impacts sensitivity to cannabinoids and cannabinoid responses. Male rats were fed WD or chow in their adolescence, after which all rats switched to a chow diet so that we could exclusively measure lasting effects of adolescent WD consumption. WD-fed male rats exhibited increased caloric intake and sustained body weight gain while on the diet, but there was no long-term effect of an adolescent WD on impulsive behavior during adulthood. This contrasts with our prior studies in female rats, where WD-fed rats increased impulsive responding, suggesting sex dependent effects of WD on impulsive responding for sucrose. Cannabinoids, which increase impulsive responding for sucrose in females, had no effect on impulsive responding for food in males. However, preliminary findings suggest that rats fed a WD during adolescence demonstrate exacerbated hyperphagic responses to the cannabinoid receptor agonist CP55940. These findings emphasize the need for further research on sex differences in dietary effects on neurodevelopmental outcomes.