Adolescent stress exposure induces persistent, sex-specific cognitive deficits

Exposure to stress or adversity during adolescence has been shown to produce both short-term and long-lasting effects on cognitive functions. Diminished learning and memory, reduced attention, and impaired decision making in adulthood are some of the most prevalent consequences of experiencing severe adversity during childhood. In addition, numerous long-term effects of stress have been shown to be sex dependent. Yet, longitudinal studies that comprehensively assess the lasting cognitive effects of adolescent stress in both sexes remain scarce. Here, we exposed male and female mice to multiple concurrent stressors repeated over ten days during early- to mid-adolescence. After reaching adulthood, mice were trained in a sensory discrimination task, where we measured learning rates, delayed response performance, and sensitivity to distractors. We found a significant reduction of learning speed in stressed female mice, but not in males. In contrast, stressed males showed weaker delayed discrimination performance and substantial sensitivity to distractors. Our data indicates that these effects may be driven by increased propensity to respond, rather than reduced sensory sensitivity. Overall, we found marked sex differences in the long-term cognitive effects of adolescent exposure to stress.