Teen brain changes increase cigarette addiction

Are teens more prone to getting addicted to nicotine than adults? A study reported in New Scientist seems to suggest so.

The team provided teen rats aged about 40 days with nicotine. Others were given nicotine only after they had passed into adulthood, at about 70 days. The rats could help themselves to the drug using a lever system, which when pressed gave them an intravenous shot of nicotine.

“The adolescents took twice as much on a per kilogram basis as adults,” he told New Scientist. “Furthermore they continued to administer twice as much when they became adults.”