Adolescence refers to the behavioral and cognitive transition from childhood to adulthood. This transition phase is a critical period for the emergence of psychiatric disorders (Paus et al, 2008). Adolescence is also crucial for the maturation of social skills. Teenagers spend much more time socially interacting with peers than during any other developmental period, and are thus more susceptible to peer-influence. Sensitivity towards social rejection has been reported to be higher during adolescence than in adulthood, and girls are particularly vulnerable to it. Adolescent social rejection by peers negatively affects psychological well-being and can result in severe adverse health outcomes (Williams, 2006). Given that adolescence is a vulnerable phase for the development of psychiatric disorders, social peer-rejection may be seen as an environmental hit that can promote these disorders, and this may be of particular relevance for the emergence of borderline personality (Schmahl et al, 2014).

We established a unique experimental approach to model social-rejection in rats where female individuals get excluded from social-play over several weeks during adolescence (Schneider et al, 2014; 2016). Those peer-rejected individuals exhibit persistent impairments in social behavior and pain perception, and show specific up-regulation of the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) in the amygdala and thalamus. Behavioral alterations can be restored by a subthreshold-dose of rimonabant in adult rats. Since CB1R seems to be of importance in mediating long-lasting consequences of social peer-rejection, we suggest that targeting the CB1R in psychiatric conditions and especially in borderline personality would be promising.

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