Pubdate: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 Source: Gamecock, The (SC Edu) Copyright: 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina Contact: http://www.dailygamecock.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2319 Author: Tina Hesman Saey, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) NEW RESEARCH EXHIBITS DANGER DRUGS, ALCOHOL POSE TO TEENAGERS' BRAINS ST. LOUIS - Teenagers who drink, smoke and use drugs can derail their brain development and set themselves up for lifelong addiction. And parents who strictly monitor their teens' behavior are one of the most influential forces preventing kids from using drugs and alcohol. Now that might not sound like news to you. But truth is, until recently most of what science has known about addiction in teenagers has been extrapolated from research in adults. Now, new brain-imaging studies have shown that the teenage brain is a rapidly changing organ and doesn't work the way an adult brain does. Researchers now believe that drugs and alcohol can disrupt that massive renovation of the brain during adolescence, making it more vulnerable to drugs and easier for teens to get addicted. And scientists say that an addiction that starts early in life is harder to kick than one that starts later. Nearly half of kids who are regular drinkers before age 14 will become alcoholics, said Dr. Danielle Dick, a clinical psychologist and geneticist at Washington University. That puts early drinkers at three times greater risk of alcohol addiction than people who wait until age 21 to start drinking, she said. Epidemiological studies have shown that most addictions start in adolescence, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And when a teenager's pleasure-chemical systems aren't fully developed and then get wired to depend on substances for feeling good, the normal flow of brain chemicals that aid in learning, decision making and other key processes are often blocked, Volkow said. In adults, genetics are more than 50 percent responsible for addiction to alcohol. So people have long assumed that genes are the biggest reason kids drink, too. But new studies of twins in Finland and Missouri showed no evidence that genetics contributed to alcohol-dependence in 14-year-olds, Dick said. Instead, Dick said, parental monitoring is one of the most consistent predictors of whether teens start using alcohol and other drugs. And that means more than just having a good relationship with your kids. A good, warm relationship doesn't mean kids are going to tell parents what they are doing, or with whom. "Parents might say, 'Oh, if they were doing that, they'd tell me,' but the reality is, they probably won't," Dick said. What works is knowing where children are, who they are with and what they are doing. Children with the highest level of parental monitoring were less likely to start drinking or using drugs, Dick said. Once teens start to drink or use drugs, the consequences turn severe. Recent studies show that teens who start using marijuana before they turn 17 are at higher risk of developing schizophrenia than people who didn't use or started smoking marijuana later in adolescence or young adulthood. Marijuana has often been called a gateway drug, but most researchers agree that marijuana doesn't necessarily set up the brain for further addictions. It does give kids practice in obtaining illicit substances and access to a subculture where harder drugs are available. The real gateway drug may be nicotine, experts say. Most kids try cigarettes before other drugs. Researchers compared sets of identical twins in which one twin started smoking before age 17 and the other twin smoked later. Twins who started smoking before age 17 became addicted to other substances, such as alcohol or other drugs, more readily than their twins who waited, Volkow said. Because identical twins have the same genetic make-up, the addiction of early-smoking twins can't be chalked up to genetic susceptibility alone, she said. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman