Adolescent Substance Abuse Articles
Nicotine's Effect on Developing Teen Brains
By Hugh C. McBride
Call central casting to request a stereotypical “bad kid,” and a pack of cigarettes is a virtual certainty to be among the props that accompany the actor to the set.
From rebels without a cause in movies from the middle of the previous century to bullies, gang members, and other “disaffected youth” in more modern films and television shows, smoking cigarettes seems to be a constant habit among young characters that are meant to be viewed as less than well-adjusted.
But though this “cigarette = troubled youth” shorthand smacks of oversimplification at best, a number of studies have revealed that nicotine can damage developing brains and also be an indicator of additional problems for kids who smoke.
An Intense Addiction
Perhaps most striking among the findings about teens and tobacco is the rapidity with which an occasional behavior can morph into a full-fledged addiction.
In a Jan. 17, 2009 article on the website LittleAbout, writer Meena Nair reported that nicotine can have an almost immediate effect on a young person’s still-developing brain.
“There are changes that occur in the brain fairly soon after you start to smoke,” Dr. David Burns of the American Lung Association said in Nair’s article. “Those changes are very similar to ones that we see with other addictions such as cocaine.”
George Koob, a professor of neuropharmacology at the Scripps Research Institute, told the website ScienceCentral that studies into the relationship between nicotine and teen brains indicate that younger people experience more intense positive effects – and less painful negative symptoms – which may lead to both more smoking and a greater likelihood of developing an addiction:
"Whatever nicotine does initially to the organism, it has less of the negative effects in adolescents and in teenagers, and more of the positive effects," says Koob. "And as a result, it's much easier for teenagers to smoke more and more."
If the brain is constructed in such a way in a young animal or young person that it allows them to easily do a lot of cigarettes, then it's logical that they're going to do a lot of cigarettes, which means that ultimately, it could lead to the addictive state."
Nair’s article also noted that the societal connotations of smoking can work in conjunction with nicotine’s addictive properties to exert a particularly strong influence on the impressionable brains of young people. “The combination of the two, the powerful physiological addiction and the really strong association with the way you live your life, make it a very difficult behavior to change,” Dr. Burns said.
Teen Tobacco Use & Adult Depression
A January 29, 2009 article on the website Medical News Today reported on “a groundbreaking new study” in which researchers claim to have discovered an association between teen smoking and the development of depression in adulthood.
The study was conducted by Florida State University Psychology Professor Carlos A. Bolaños-Guzmán and colleagues, and was published in the online version of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
After injecting adolescent rats with either nicotine or a saline solution twice a day for more than two weeks, then testing the rats in stressful and rewarding situations, the researchers reached the following conclusions:
- Nicotine exposure during adolescence, but not adulthood, led to a depression-like state characterized by lower sensitivity to natural reward (sucrose) and enhanced sensitivity to situations that raised anxiety and stress in later life.
- Behavioral characteristics of depression can emerge one week after stopping nicotine exposure.
- A single day of nicotine exposure during adolescence is enough to trigger a depression-like state in adulthood.
- The depression behaviors went back to normal when the rats were given either nicotine or antidepressants in adulthood.
“These data suggest that adolescent exposure to nicotine results in a negative emotional state rendering the organism significantly more vulnerable to the adverse effects of stress,” the researchers wrote.
A Multitude of Long-Term Effects
As dire as the Bolaños-Guzmán team’s findings might be, the effects of early exposure to tobacco (and thus nicotine) are hardly limited to the development of adult depression.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that almost nine of every 10 adult smokers began their habit before age 18, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that as many as six million people who start smoking in their teen years will eventually die of a smoking-related condition.
NIDA data also indicate that teenagers who use tobacco are six times more likely than non-smoking teens to suffer from agoraphobia (fear of crowds and public or unfamiliar places), and are 15 times more likely to have panic attacks.
Tobacco, nicotine, and the thousands of chemicals that are present in most modern cigarettes can also negatively impact lung and heart development, hormone production, and immune system functionality in young people, and make them more susceptible to a wide range of additional heath problems.
Smoking & Behavior Problems
A study that appeared in the October 2008 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health reported that young people who smoke are more likely to experience behavior problems than are their non-smoking peers.
“We were struck by the degree to which early smoking appeared to indicate that kids were on the fast track toward a troubled adolescence,” Phyllis Ellickson, PhD, who led the team of researchers at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, said.
A Sept. 4, 2008 Medical News Todayarticle on the RAND study included the following highlights and findings:
- The researchers collected data at 7th, 10th, and 12th grade from 2,000 students in California and Oregon who were early smokers in middle school. They tested the students' saliva samples for tobacco and marijuana to ensure accuracy.
- At-risk teens were two or more times likely than low-risk teens (those who hadn't tried smoking by 7th grade) to have peers who smoke, and were five times more likely to have had two or more problems in school.
- By the end of high school, 36 percent of early smokers were smoking regularly and 58 percent had engaged in two or more problem behaviors, including binge drinking, abusing and selling drugs, and dropping out of school.
Though the researchers did not establish a cause-effect relationship between early smoking and negative behaviors, the statistics support the thesis that teen smoking may be a warning sign of additional problems for the child and the family.
