For example, AAE has recently been linked to smaller whole hippocampal volume and increased volume of the right basal nucleus of the amygdala 100. Microglia have also been shown to be important mediators of alcohol’s neurotoxic effects 78, in addition to their known role in adolescent brain development 79. Thus, alcohol’s effects on microglia signaling could lead to a wide array of long-lasting effects. Similar to astrocytes, hippocampal microglia seem to be particularly vulnerable to alcohol. AAE via gavage in adolescent male rats has been shown to produce dramatic increases in microglial activation markers in the entorhinal cortex (EC) and the hippocampus 80.

Warning Signs of Teen Substance Use Disorders

• All participating students took the survey via the web – either on tablets or on a computer – with between 95-99% of respondents taking the survey in-person in school.
• This video for middle school students describes cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapes, and other tobacco products and provides…
• These authors argued that loss of CB1 receptors on glutamatergic terminals resulted in greater VTA dopamine firing and increased dopamine release in the NAc 133.
• In 2022 and 2023, most reported substance use among adolescents held steady at these lowered levels, with similar trends and some decreases in use in 2024.
• Mark S. Gold, M.D., is a pioneering researcher, professor, and chairman of psychiatry at Yale, the University of Florida, and Washington University in St Louis.
• This is especially true if you live with a dually diagnosed mental health or physical health condition.

Roadside alcohol testing has prevented thousands of deaths and helped many people with alcohol use disorders (AUD) obtain help, sometimes by coercion of courts. Users often deny they have a problem with drugs or alcohol and believe they are truthful. If they’re not treated, almost half of kids with mental health disorders will end up having a substance use disorder. If you start feeling like you have to use substances to feel good, you make risky and unsafe choices because of substance use, or drugs and alcohol start drug abuse in teens negatively impacting your life in other ways, ask for help right away. Talk to your parent or guardian, schedule a session with your school counselor, talk to your primary care doctor, or confide in a trusted adult.

Teenage Drug Abuse And Addiction

For example, it has become clear that many drugs can cause proinflammatory central immune signaling, including the acute activation of microglia 248. This neuroinflammation can have critical long-term effects 67, 249–251 which may contribute to the development of substance-use disorders (see 251 for a review). Targeting neuroinflammation may prove to be an important target for therapies addressing adolescent drug use 252–254. The EC system also seems to be a common factor related to all three substances.

The Adolescent Brain and Substance Use

In humans, studies have reported effects of ACE on academic achievement 144, what is alcoholism IQ 145, and performance on specific cognitive tasks 146, 147 (but see also 148). A systematic review of recent papers investigating the cognitive impacts of ACE found significant effects on outcomes such as executive control, working memory, and academic performance 149. As is often the case in human studies, baseline differences in cognitive performance are also predictive of early cannabis use 150, meaning that trait level cognitive ability and ACE may interact with each other. In addition, a number of studies report sex differences in the effects of ACE.

What parents can do:

The 2022 Monitoring the Future data tables highlighting the survey results are https://ecosoberhouse.com/ available online from the University of Michigan. Our e-newsletter will keep you up-to-date on the latest health information.

• Importantly, these substances act on receptors widely expressed in the brain (i.e. dopamine, GABAergic, and glutamate receptors), particularly in regions important for reward and cognition.
• Recent studies have reported deficits in recall of an extinguished fear response 54, deficits in reversal learning 43, and impaired working memory 55, 56 following AAE.
• From 2019 to 2021, overdose deaths among persons aged 14–18 years increased.
• Median monthly overdose deaths among persons aged 10–19 years (adolescents) increased 109% from July–December 2019 to July–December 2021; deaths involving illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs) increased 182%.

Although deaths appear to have begun declining in late 2021, they are still alarmingly higher than in 2019. Collaboration among public health and safety agencies, physicians, mental health and substance use treatment providers, and educators to implement these efforts could save lives. It should be stated that not all of the literature on ACE has produced evidence of deleterious effects. There is emerging evidence that, at least in rodent studies, that detrimental effects of ACE on working memory could be due to the experimenter-administration of high doses of cannabinoids. Studies from our lab were the first to use adolescent self-administration of cannabinoids (THC or the full agonist WIN55,212-2) to investigate long-term effects on adult working memory performance. We found that adolescent THC or WIN55,212-2 self-administration actually led to improved working memory performance in males, while having no effect or a tendency to decrease performance in females 160–162.

• An understanding of this will enable the use of better models to understand the way that humans consume these substances.
• Responding to a teen’s admission or denial of drug use in the right away is just as important as asking the right questions.
• The EC system contributes to the reinforcing effects of all three substances, and undergoes changes following adolescent exposure to them 255.

This video for middle school students explains how synthetic cathinones, commonly known as bath salts, affect the brain… NDAFW is an annual health observance that teaches teens the science of drug use and addiction among youth. This summer, my laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin welcomed a bright high school student as a volunteer. Members of my lab are interested in how hormones act in the brain to influence response to drugs of abuse.