Figure 3.

Adolescent rats have decreased levels of TH and DAT in the DS. Diagrams in the upper right corner of each panel depict general regions of dissection of tissue-free hand dissected bilaterally from both the NAc (outlined in green) and DS (outlined in red) of adolescent and adult rats. Protein expression levels of DAT (adolescents, n=4; adults, n=3), VMAT2 (n=6 for each group), and TH (n=6 for each group) were measured using western blot analysis in the (a) NAc, and (b) DS of adolescent (orange bars) and adult (blue bars) rats. All protein optical densities were normalized to tubulin, shown along the bottom of the figure. All data are expressed as mean±SEM. Asterisk(s) denotes significant differences between age groups (*p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001).