Adolescence is a unique developmental period of enhanced clinical vulnerability to nicotine tobacco and e-cigarette-based drugs. Clinical and preclinical studies suggest that adolescent exposure to nicotine disrupts critical brain maturation processes, including attention, working memory, and emotional regulation.
It Can Change the Way You Feel
Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical found in tobacco and certain non-tobacco products like e-cigarettes. It can harm a person’s health when used in high doses or for prolonged periods. There are quick facts on the risks of e-cigarettes for kids, teens, and young adults that everyone should know.
When people smoke a cigarette or use a vape, nicotine enters the body through the lungs and is absorbed into the bloodstream within 10 seconds. It then crosses the blood-brain barrier and binds to nicotinic receptors (nAChR), usually activated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. But nicotine doesn’t act the same way as acetylcholine, so it disrupts normal brain function.
nAChRs play a role in many crucial functions, including maintaining healthy heart and muscle movement, memory formation, and learning. They are also involved in attention performance. Adolescents’ prefrontal cortexes, one of the last brain areas to mature, are especially sensitive to nicotine exposure and may be impaired by long-term smoking.
Researchers have also shown that adolescent smokers progress faster to nicotine dependence and are more likely to continue smoking as adults, in part because their lack of mature cognitive control makes them susceptible to social pressure and impulsive risk-taking behavior from peers who smoke. Moreover, they are more likely to be influenced by the smoking behavior of parents and siblings.
It Can Change the Way Your Brain Works
Your brain is a complex network of neurons or cells that transfer information throughout your body. Information travels through these neurons as electric currents. Still, the signals are translated into information that can be understood by other cells via neurotransmitters – chemicals that relay messages between different cells.
Adolescence is a time of rapid brain development and pruning, where connections between certain neurons grow stronger or are removed – much like the branches on a tree. And make way for newer branches that can handle more complex information as you prepare to enter adulthood. Nicotine can throw a wrench into this process, and some research suggests that it can permanently change how your brain functions in some areas.
Researchers have found that nicotine acts as a mimic for several neurotransmitters, including the acetylcholine that controls brain signaling. When it binds to these receptors, it increases signaling activity. However, the brain begins to compensate for this increased activity by reducing acetylcholine receptors, which leads to developing a tolerance. And the need for more nicotine to produce the same effect.
Researchers have also found that nicotine can disrupt the maturation of key prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions. A brain region responsible for impulse control and working memory. They have found that adolescent nicotine exposure decreases the accuracy of correct stimulus detection in visuospatial attentional tasks and increases premature and time-out responses, which can lead to impulsive behavior and impaired decision-making.
It Can Change the Way You Think
Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development with unique clinical vulnerability to drugs, including nicotine and tobacco. Research at the preclinical and clinical levels suggests that adolescent brains exhibit enhanced susceptibility to nicotine because of its impact on the maturation of key neural circuitry, particularly within the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
The PFC is associated with executive functions, working memory, motivation, reward processing, and emotional regulation. Nicotine exposure affects these processes and interferes with their normal functioning, causing changes that have long-term consequences.
Once you learn something new, stronger connections – or synapses – are built between brain cells. These synapses are most strongly formed in the youngest parts of the brain. Young people build these connections faster than adults, which makes them more susceptible to the pleasurable effects of nicotine. And other drugs that act on the dopamine system.
Nicotine can alter the way these synapses form, which is why repeated use of e-cigarettes can lead to nicotine addiction. Over time, your brain becomes conditioned to the drug and expects it in certain situations, such as when you drink alcohol, feel stressed, or after a meal. This can make it harder to quit smoking, as your brain craves the dopamine rush you get from nicotine.
It Can Change the Way You Act
Nicotine is a highly addictive substance found in cigarettes and e-cigarette liquids. When people inhale nicotine, it enters the body and binds to specific receptors in their brains and other tissues and organs. It mimics the actions of a naturally occurring brain chemical called acetylcholine. When acetylcholine binds to cholinergic receptors, it signals the release of dopamine, which creates positive feelings like happiness and reward. This feeling can make smokers and vapers feel energized and more focused, but it is short-lived. And it takes a lot of nicotine to maintain this effect. This is why it’s so easy to become addicted, especially in teens.
Adolescence is a period of enhanced clinical vulnerability to drugs such as nicotine, tobacco, and alcohol. This sensitivity is due not just to sociocultural influences but also to preclinical. And clinical evidence highlighting the unique neurobiology of the adolescent brain.
Recent studies indicate that adolescent nicotine exposure can disrupt the normal function of prefrontal networks that regulate executive functions, working memory, and emotion regulation. These effects are mediated by reduced short-term plasticity in layer V pyramidal neurons of the PFC, which handle diverse incoming information from the mediodorsal thalamus and local neurons. These changes can compromise the ability of the PFC to filter out irrelevant information and to focus attention.
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