Prenatal bupropion exposure enhances the cocaine reward and stress susceptibility in adult mice.

Although a growing body of evidence supports the notion that certain antidepressant treatments in pregnancy produce earlier delivery and minor behavioral teratogenesis in infants, the long-term effects of such treatments in adulthood remain ill-defined. Recently, postnatal exposure to psychotropic drugs was found to affect the emotional development and susceptibility to abused drugs. Thus, this study aimed to examine whether prenatal exposure of four frequently-used antidepressants, bupropion, fluvoxamine, citalopram, and trazodone, altered the responsiveness to stress and cocaine in the adulthood. Dams received daily injection of bupropion (25 or 12.5 mg/kg), citalopram (5 mg/kg), fluvoxamine (10 mg/kg), trazodone (20 mg/kg) or saline throughout their third trimester of gestation, and several birth outcome indices were then examined. Locomotor activity, naive anxiety levels, and the sensitivity to the cocaine reinforcing effects were observed in pups at their day 56-60 post partum. We found that trazodone treatment produced a high mortality rate in pups after weaning. Mice, prenatally treated with bupropion at 25 mg/kg, exhibited lower rearing numbers and ambulatory activity as compared to the saline-treated mice. More importantly, such treatment enhanced the mouse sensitivity to the reinforcing effects of cocaine. Taken together, these results suggest that use of bupropion in the late pregnancy may run a risk of enhancing the offspring's susceptibility to stress and cocaine reward in adulthood.