Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Nicotine Exposure during Adolescence for Prefrontal Cortex Neuronal Network Function
- 13 September 2012
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine
- Vol. 2 (12), a012120
- https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a012120
Abstract
More than 70% of adolescents report to have smoked a cigarette at least once. At the adolescent stage the brain has not completed its maturation. The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the brain area responsible for executive functions and attention performance, is one of the last brain areas to mature and is still developing during adolescence. Smoking during adolescence increases the risk of developing psychiatric disorders and cognitive impairment in later life. In addition, adolescent smokers suffer from attention deficits, which aggravate with the years of smoking. Recent studies in rodents reveal the molecular changes induced by adolescent nicotine exposure that alter the functioning of synapses in the PFC and that underlie the lasting effects on cognitive function. Here we provide an overview of these recent findings.Keywords
This publication has 99 references indexed in Scilit:
- Genetics of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: Relevance to nicotine addictionBiochemical Pharmacology, 2008
- Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors inhibit glutamate release at thalamocortical synapses in the developing somatosensory cortexNeuroscience, 2007
- Supralinear increase of recurrent inhibition during sparse activity in the somatosensory cortexNature Neuroscience, 2007
- The diversity of subunit composition in nAChRs: Evolutionary origins, physiologic and pharmacologic consequencesJournal of Neurobiology, 2002
- In vivo modulation of a cortical functional sensory representation shortly after topical cholinergic agent applicationJournal of Comparative Neurology, 2002
- Short-Term Synaptic PlasticityAnnual Review of Physiology, 2002
- Smoking, drinking, and incident cognitive impairment: a cohort community based study included in the Gospel Oak projectJournal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 2000
- Cholinergic Switching Within Neocortical Inhibitory NetworksScience, 1998
- Cigarette smoking predicts development of depressive symptoms among U.S. AdolescentsAnnals of Behavioral Medicine, 1997
- The paradox of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor upregulation by nicotineTrends in Pharmacological Sciences, 1990