Adolescent use of the psychedelic 25C-NBOMe in rats leads to lasting avoidance behavior linked to disrupted coordination between memory and decision-making brain areas

Repeated exposure to the serotonergic psychedelic drug 25C-NBOMe during adolescence induced lasting competitive avoidance in male Sprague-Dawley rats.

• Exposure to 25C-NBOMe in adolescence led to significant changes in social behavior, specifically competitive avoidance.
• This behavioral change was not due to altered sociability or social dominance.
• Disrupted synchrony in the default mode network (DMN) was observed, particularly reduced coherence between the ventral hippocampus and the orbitofrontal cortex.
• Reduced DMN synchrony was strongly associated with the competitive avoidance behavior in drug-exposed rats.
• Chemogenetic activation of the ventral hippocampus to orbitofrontal cortex pathway normalized avoidance behavior, while inhibition induced it in control rats.

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