Changes within deep regions of the brain can now be visualized at the cellular level, based on research on mice, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Published Sunday in Nature Medicine, the study used a groundbreaking technique to…
NEW YORK (Jan. 4, 2011) — Researchers have produced a lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a safe vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine.
In their study, published Jan. 4 …
15 December 2010, MDMA or ‘ecstasy’ increases feelings of empathy and social connection. These ’empathogenic’ effects suggest that MDMA might be useful to enhance the psychotherapy of people who struggle to feel connected to others, as may occur in …
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, announced today that Dr. Eric M. Verdin of the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, Calif., has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the NIDA Avan…
Researchers have demonstrated that binge use of MDMA (ecstasy) can significantly alter cardiovascular function, including inducing cardiac arrhythmia and myocarditis, inflammation of the heart wall. In rats injected with MDMA, the risk of cardiac arrhythmia increased and the pattern of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and fluctuations in heart rate changed after repeated MDMA binges.
A study by researchers at Harvard University has provided more evidence that using stimulant medications such as methylphenidate to treat children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may reduce their risk of developing drug and alcohol use disorders later in life.
Studies published over the past several months disprove claims that products such as additive-free cigarettes, bidis, and novel cigarette-like devices are less toxic than conventional cigarettes. A study published in the December 2002 issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research examined the effects of bidis–hand-rolled cigarettes from India–and additive-free American Spirit cigarettes. Bidis are popular with adolescents because many perceive them to be less of a risk to health than regular cigarettes, and because they are manufactured in a variety of flavors, such as chocolate or root beer.
Smokers diagnosed with schizophrenia had higher smoking cessation rates when treated with bupropion than with a placebo, according to a study led by Dr. Tony George at Yale University. Bupropion is a medication used to help people quit smoking and to treat depression. Researchers randomly assigned 32 schizophrenic cigarette smokers, who were clinically stable on antipsychotic medications and with a strong desire to quit smoking, to receive bupropion or placebo for 10 weeks. During the study, participants were periodically evaluated for smoking urges, depression, and symptoms of schizophrenia. They also attended weekly smoking cessation group therapy that included motivational enhancement therapy, social skills training, and relapse-prevention strategies.
Nicotine administration in humans is known to sharpen attention and to slightly enhance memory. Now scientists, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have identified those areas of the brain where nicotine exerts its effects on cognitive skills. Their findings suggest that nicotine improves attention in smokers by enhancing activation in the posterior cortical and subcortical regions of the brain–areas traditionally associated with visual attention, arousal, and motor activation. This study provides the first evidence that nicotine-induced enhancement of parietal cortex activation is associated with improved attention.
Children who start to use alcohol, marijuana or other illicit drugs in their early teen years are more likely to experience psychiatric disorders, especially depression, in their late 20’s. Although teens who started smoking at an early age were at increased risk for alcohol dependence and substance use disorders in their late 20’s, they did not appear to be at an increased risk for depression or other psychiatric disorders. However, initiating tobacco use in late adolescence was associated with depression and other psychiatric disorders in the late 20s.
This year’s annual Monitoring the Future survey of American secondary school students provides much good news for the nation, reports the University of Michigan. Ecstasy use is finally beginning to decline among adolescents, the proportion using any illicit drug is also down, the proportion drinking alcohol has dropped, and the proportion reporting cigarette smoking continues to drop sharply.