Center for Addictive Behaviors

Cigarettes Make Teens Want to Smoke More Cigarettes

System Admin — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Article link:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/03/teens_smoke_cigarettes_brain.php

A new study by Edythe London, professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute, was featured March 3 by the Orange County Register, AOL Health and LA Weekly blogs and KCRW-89.9 FM, and March 4 on KTSM-Ch. 9 (El Paso). Her research found that smoking can lower activity in teens' prefrontal cortex, the brain region that guides decision-making and other important functions.

Center for Translational Research on Addiction

Tobacco smoking impacts teens' brains, UCLA study shows

Semel Web Manager — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Tobacco smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the U.S., with more than 400,000 deaths each year attributable to smoking or its consequences. And yet teens still smoke. Indeed, smoking usually begins in the teen years, and approximately 80 percent of adult smokers became hooked by the time they were 18. Meanwhile, teens who don't take up smoking usually never do. While studies have linked cigarette smoking to deficits in attention and memory in adults, UCLA researchers wanted to compare brain function in adolescent smokers and non-smokers, with a focus on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that guides "executive functions" like decision-making and that is still developing structurally and functionally in adolescents. They found a disturbing correlation: The greater a teen's addiction to nicotine, the less active the prefrontal cortex was, suggesting that smoking can affect brain function.

Author:

Mark Wheeler