Has anyone else noticed that people who start using drugs at an earlier age tend to use them for a longer period of time than people who start at a later age?

WASHINGTON — New drug research suggests that teens may get addicted and relapse more easily than adults because developing brains are more powerfully motivated by drug-related cues. This conclusion has been reached by researchers who found that adolescent rats given cocaine – a powerfully addicting stimulant – were more likely than adults to prefer the place where they got it. That learned association endured: Even after experimenters extinguished the drug-linked preference, a small reinstating dose of cocaine appeared to rekindle that preference – but only in the adolescent rats.

The research, performed at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School’s largest psychiatric facility, was reported in the April issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.

Evidence that younger brains get stuck on drug-related stimuli reinforces real-world data. Epidemiological studies confirm that of people in various age groups who experiment with drugs, teens are by far the most likely to become addicted. Thus, the new findings may be useful in developing new treatments for youthful addiction.

In the study, psychologists Heather Brenhouse, PhD, and Susan Andersen, PhD, who directs McLean’s Developmental Psychopharmacology Laboratory, introduced rats that were 38 or 77 days old (equivalent to 13 or 20 human years) to an apparatus with one central and two larger side chambers that had different flooring, wall colors and lighting. For three days in a row, the researchers injected the rats with saline solution in the morning and placed them in one side chamber for an hour. Four hours later, they injected them with a preference-forming dose of cocaine (either 10 or 20 mg per kg of weight, to assess two doses known to be habit-forming) and placed them in the opposite-side chamber for an hour. Conditioning this way kept the rats from associating the symptoms of withdrawal with the non-drug chamber.

On Day 4, the researchers let the rats freely explore the entire apparatus in a drug-free state for 30 minutes, to test for “conditioned place preference” for the chamber where they got cocaine. Brenhouse and Andersen calculated how long each rat spent in the drug-paired side relative to total time spent on either side. They repeated the procedure every 24 hours until each animal’s place preference was extinguished, when the time they spent in the drug-paired chamber was cut in half – suggesting no lingering preference for either side.

Relative to adults, adolescent rats required around 75 percent more trials to extinguish a preference for the place where they were given the drug.

After each rat’s last extinction trial, the researchers waited 24 hours, injected a low 5 mg/kg “priming” dose of cocaine, and put it back in the apparatus to test for place preference. During this test for “reinstatement” of extinguished preferences, adolescent rats showed a significantly greater renewed preference than did adults for the drug-paired chamber. Those that had originally learned on a 10 mg/kg dose of cocaine showed 40 percent greater reinstatement than the few adult rats that showed a place preference at the lower dose.

Interestingly, both adolescent and adult rats who were conditioned at the 20 mg/kg dose renewed their place preference to a similar degree. Brenhouse and Andersen view this as a sign that adolescents form stronger memories for even less potent rewards. Thus, they wrote, “Adolescent vulnerability to addiction involves robust memories for drug-associated cues that are difficult to extinguish.” They speculate that the context of drug use is more salient to adolescents, perhaps because the frontal cortex is still developing.

Brenhouse and her fellow researchers found in prior studies that during adolescence, dopamine – a neurotransmitter that signals “reward” – may trigger more focused messages traveling from the frontal-cortex area involved with learning to a central area involved with reward and addiction. This biochemical express lane, which appears to fade as the brain matures, may result in the adolescent brain’s capacity for building stronger memories for rewarding stimuli -- including the people, places and events associated with addicting drugs.

This heightened salience, say Brenhouse and Andersen, “may require atypical strategies for drug abuse intervention during the adolescent period, such as extended treatment that involves substitution with different rewards, for example, exercise or music.” Brenhouse wonders whether teens may learn best when rewards are involved. “Harnessing their acute ability to learn well and form strong associations with stimuli that predict rewards may be helpful,” she says. “In addition, it may be important to realize that adolescents might need longer treatment programs.”

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/apa-rss042108.php

i thought that was a given.

stop making useless posts you fucking troll.

Has anyone else noticed that people who start using drugs at an earlier age tend to use them for a longer period of time than people who start at a later age?



http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/apa-rss042108.php

Summarize it in 3 words.

I thought it could have been due to the fact that teenage brains are undeveloped on at least an emotional scale compared to an adults, and that cocaines effects are theoretically felt more profoundly, creating a stronger impression and letting addiction grow easier. That's just my opinion though.

get with the times faggot!

IWD you're so useless.

That's also a huge part of it.

Also, to all you curious little fiends, here's a plethora of information. Maybe some people already know about this site but I just stumbled upon futurepundit and holy hell is this site packed FULL of juicy tidbits.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_brain_addiction.html

IWD you're so useless.

why is it that whenever the FUCK I post ANYTHING I always get your gay fucking username popping up with some sort of response. i'm a guy you fucking faggot. if you're going to stalk someone at least be straight about it.

why is it that whenever the FUCK I post ANYTHING I always get your gay fucking username popping up with some sort of response. i'm a guy you fucking faggot. if you're going to stalk someone at least be straight about it.

why is it that whenever the FUCK I look at ANY thread I always get your gay fucking username popping up with some sort of response?

GTFO of my thread!

That's also a huge part of it.

Also, to all you curious little fiends, here's a plethora of information. Maybe some people already know about this site but I just stumbled upon futurepundit and holy hell is this site packed FULL of juicy tidbits.

http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_brain_addiction.html

holy hell!

That site is like a pseudo-scientific version of abovetheinfluence.com

no data just bullshit

stories like: Pot-smoking your way to memory loss and How Marijuana Disrupts Memory Formation In Ratsappear in these scientific publications only to restate that EEGs were different in the stoned and the non stoned rats. While frequent claims echo: possible permanent alteration to the "complex internal working of your brain". Arbitrary statements like: "The stoners ought to try to remember the details of this research to think about it next time they take a toke." leave no doubt who this shit stinks for.



And in the storys titled: Altered perception of reward in human cocaine addiction
and Cocaine Addicts Have Distorted Values For Money

quotes like this take a very heavy handed approach to politics, bashing libertarians as just coke heads. : "Here is yet another study, showing impaired ability of addicts to make judgements that would seem like common sense to, say, a free market libertarian."

More than half of the cocaine abusers rated $10 as equally valuable as $1000, "demonstrating a reduced subjective sensitivity to relative monetary reward," Goldstein said.


And when you read, you can tell it's chewed-up and readied for you to swallow.

Makes me want to post moar then Vb will let me.

holy hell!

That site is like a pseudo-scientific version of abovetheinfluence.com

no data just bullshit

And when you read, you can tell it's chewed-up and readied for you to swallow.

What? just because it presents some very anti-drug (a)buse points of view?

loosen up yr mental sphincter.

What? just because it presents some very anti-drug (a)buse points of view?

loosen up yr mental sphincter.

did yar reed frum the lik u posted? http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_brain_addiction.html

did yar reed frum the lik u posted? http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/cat_brain_addiction.html

yes...I did...ahah...

holy hell!

That site is like a pseudo-scientific version of abovetheinfluence.com

no data just bullshit

stories like: Pot-smoking your way to memory loss and How Marijuana Disrupts Memory Formation In Ratsappear in these scientific publications only to restate that EEGs were different in the stoned and the non stoned rats. While frequent claims echo: possible permanent alteration to the "complex internal working of your brain". Arbitrary statements like: "The stoners ought to try to remember the details of this research to think about it next time they take a toke." leave no doubt who this shit stinks for.



And in the storys titled: Altered perception of reward in human cocaine addiction
and Cocaine Addicts Have Distorted Values For Money

quotes like this take a very heavy handed approach to politics, bashing libertarians as just coke heads. : "Here is yet another study, showing impaired ability of addicts to make judgements that would seem like common sense to, say, a free market libertarian."

More than half of the cocaine abusers rated $10 as equally valuable as $1000, "demonstrating a reduced subjective sensitivity to relative monetary reward," Goldstein said.


And when you read, you can tell it's chewed-up and readied for you to swallow.

Makes me want to post moar then Vb will let me.

thus mai statements stay

yeah well rats' brains don't work the same way humans' do

just because they proved rats have tails doesn't mean we do...

animal studies are the most irrelevant thing possible, like im not even trying to be all enviromentalist/humanitarian, its not that, its just a study done on rats really doesnt prove something in humans

I didn't think you guys would take kindly to this sort of thing, but meh.

well i dont take kindly to people who don't think us guys will take kindly to this sort of thing

yeah, but now theres proof

stop making useless posts you fucking troll.

yes i am a troll you are correct.

this word is so fuckin overused.

why is it that whenever the FUCK I post ANYTHING I always get your gay fucking username popping up with some sort of response. i'm a guy you fucking faggot. if you're going to stalk someone at least be straight about it.

Because you have deep routed issues your outbursts of 3rd grade insults, on the scale of grades, 3rd is a compliment objectively compared to how inane your grasp on all requiring thought has shown itself, and the fact that the intellectual level behind every one of your weak attempts at either arguments or witty shock humour, which are paralleled if not surpased by children in the third grade, fail to gratify by what means you've chosen to convey them, leaving you completely frustrated in the fact that you HAVE no power over anyone in the way that you're acting, but leave you blind to see it.

That's just my analysis.

Harsh words, but in the way you're presenting yourself, it's all that can get through to you. Don't get me wrong, I wish no ill intent upon you, I wish you well and far from the ill intent you seem to create upon yourself...

stop making useless posts you fucking troll.

troll

Why don't they do studies on humans? There are tons of people who would do that job, and they are easily disposable according to society. So win-win?

Because you have deep routed issues your outbursts of 3rd grade insults, on the scale of grades, 3rd is a compliment objectively compared to how inane your grasp on all requiring thought has shown itself, and the fact that the intellectual level behind every one of your weak attempts at either arguments or witty shock humour, which are paralleled if not surpased by children in the third grade, fail to gratify by what means you've chosen to convey them, leaving you completely frustrated in the fact that you HAVE no power over anyone in the way that you're acting, but leave you blind to see it.

That's just my analysis.

Harsh words, but in the way you're presenting yourself, it's all that can get through to you. Don't get me wrong, I wish no ill intent upon you, I wish you well and far from the ill intent you seem to create upon yourself...

i could easily type up a well worded paragraph like that. if i weren't a gay fag.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1575000/images/_1576875_black_rat300.jpg
gets addicted faster then
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/crittercity/Newest%20backgrounds/white_rat_big.gif

i lold

Last night I was at a party. I ran into an aqquaintance and we both happened to have bud. So we snuck off to the other end of the house. Our smoke attracted some other stoners, but also a bunch of drunks. The drunks accused us of being addicts, but all the same, took "just one hit" or hung around to get a contact high before going back to their beer pong "tournament".

wtf?

They were drunk is fuck

breaks scientific ethics, you usually start on disposable animals until you further develop your theory. you can than try to use it on humans, but then you need FDA approval for said trials...