Adolescent Brain and Drugs
Long time reader Mary sent me details of a study on how legal and illegal drugs effect the developing brain. The results suggest that Delta FosB, a brain chemical that is linked to addiction, greatly increases. However this only happens in adolescent brains, not in young or older brains. This highlights both how adolescent brains far more plastic and subject to change than adult or child brains.
See Jefferson Scientists Find Evidence Of Greater Sensitivity To Addictive Drugs In Adolescence for a write up of the study or Periadolescent Mice Show Enhanced Delta FosB Upregulation in Response to Cocaine and Amphetamine for the original study.
Find Out More:
Books:
- You And Your A.d.d. Child How To Understand And Help Kids With Attention Deficit Disorder
- Ritalin-Free Kids: Safe and Effective Homeopathic Medicine for ADHD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems
- Nature’s Ritalin for the Marathon Mind: Nurturing Your ADHD Child With Exercise
- Making the Brain Body Connection: A Playful Guide to Releasing Mental, Physical & Emotional Blocks to Success
- Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level
June 19th, 2007
ADD / ADHD Medication, Medication
Comments on: Adolescent Brain and Drugs
I wonder what the implications of this are in terms of using stimulant medication to treat ADD/ADHD in adolescence?
Posted by: ML June 21st, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Leave a Reply