A study of laboratory animals found that cocaine changes the way genes in their brains work.

Dr. Ian Maze, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and author of the study, explained that genes are not just about heredity. They also regulate how cells in the body behave.

"When you give an animal a single dose of cocaine, you start to have genes aberrantly turn off and on in the strange pattern that we are still trying to figure out," he said.

Dr. Maze's study indicates that cocaine changes the region of the brain essential for experiencing pleasure and desire. This may partly explain why people get addicted to cocaine.

"This study is a major step in understanding the development of cocaine addiction and a first step toward generating ideas for how we might use epigenetic regulation to modulate the development of addiction," said Peter Kalivas, professor of neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The study appeared in the journal Science.

Labels: cocaine, brain_damage

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A study of "teenaged" laboratory animals found that daily use of marijuana affected brain chemicals that regulate mood and anxiety. This may partly explain why daily marijuana consumption during adolescence can produce symptoms of depression and anxiety, and may even cause permanent brain damage.

• Dr. Gabriella Gobbi of McGill University in Canada says that marijuana alters the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, which in turn affects mood and makes people more susceptible to stress.
  
• Even if the laboratory animals in her study stopped marijuana use by the end of the adolescence, the changes in the levels of the two brain chemicals were still detectable in adulthood.
• "Our study is one of the first to focus on the role of biological mechanisms at the root of this influence of cannabis on depression in adolescents," Dr. Gobbi said.
  

This study appeared in the journal Neurobiology of Disease.

Labels: teen_drug_use, marijuana, brain_damage

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Yet another scientific study using MRI technology has linked teenage binge drinking to brain damage.

Professor Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego, performed brain scans on 28 people ages 16 to 19 years old. Half of Prof. Taper's subjects were binge drinkers who got drunk often. This group had lower levels of white matter fiber coherence in 18 separate areas of their brains. White matter is critical for the relay of information within the brain.

"Because the brain is still developing during adolescence, there has been concern that it may be more vulnerable to high doses of alcohol," Dr. Tapert said.

Government surveys show that about 55 percent of all high school seniors say they have been drunk once in the past year, and about 25 percent report drinking five drinks in a row during the past two weeks.

This study appeared in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Labels: teenage_drinking, alcohol_abuse, brain_damage, binge drinking

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One key to successfully helping people recover from substance abuse is to understand the biological reactions caused by prolong drug or alcohol use. Over time, the brain's chemistry is affected by substance use and no longer functions normally.

"The effect of addictive substances on the brain might chemically impair key survival functions - eating, drinking, even reproduction. Substance abuse also appears to interfere with the chemical wiring that connects emotion to action, which could account for why alcoholics and addicts often seem immobilized and unable to help themselves."

Understanding these types of things helps get rid of the stigma often association with substance abuse and addiction - which is still often viewed simply as a lack of willpower or a kind of "moral failure". In reality, substance abuse is a deeply rooted, physiological issue that takes time and support to overcome.

SunHawk Acadmey offers a substance abuse recovery program for troubled teens.

Labels: brain_damage, brain_chemistry, drug_use

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Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia found that the chemical in marijuana affects adult and adolescent rats differently. In particular, adolescent rats lost more long and short-term memory.

Dr. Ian McGregor and his colleagues tested the rats' memories right after they ingested the drug, and again after all traces of it had left their bodies. The adolescent rats had deeper memory impairment. In addition, the adult rats avoided the "room" where the marijuana had been "served," but the teen rats did not.

"Cannabis produces much greater long-term changes in adolescent than adult rat brains," Dr. McGregor said.

This study appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Labels: marijuana, brain_damage, memory

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The number of patients between the ages of 16 and 25 being treated in Victoria for alcohol-related brain injuries rose 16 percent in the last ten years. Many attribute this rise to the high concentration of bars and clubs in the city center.

"Staff at Arbias, which provides support to people with alcohol or substance-related brain damage, are treating about 600 young people annually in Melbourne, up from about 120 a decade ago."

There are currently more than 1,000 establishments in Melbourne's city center that are licensed to serve alcohol. Many of them are open well past 1am. These and other statistics are causing many in Australia to call for the legal drinking age to be raised to twenty-one. Read more at TheAge.com.au.

Parents struggling with troubled teens and drugs can find help at ByParents-ForParents.com. Read The Signs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Teenagers to learn more to learn more about underage and binge drinking.

Labels: underage drinking, brain_damage, binge_drinking

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A small study indicates that alcohol may damage the brains of women more extensively than male brains.

Researchers tested 24 female alcoholics, 78 male alcoholics and 68 non-users of both sexes. The non-alcoholics scored the best on tests of working memory, visuospatial skills, and psychomotor speed. However, female alcoholics performed significantly worse than the males, even in instances when they had consumed less alcohol over shorter lengths of time.

Barbara Flannery, a senior scientist at the RTI International research institute in Baltimore, said she believes that there should be "gender-sensitive public awareness programs" about alcoholism.

Other studies have proven that the higher percentage of body fat in females makes alcohol more toxic for them. There is also evidence that adolescent girls who drink incur damage not only to their developing brains but also to their reproductive systems.

This study appears in the May issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Adolescent girls suffering from teen drug abuse and addiction can get help from a licensed residential drug treatment program like the one at SunHawk Academy. Learn more about SunHawks adolescent residential treatment center >>

Labels: alcohol, brain_damage, brain_chemistry

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