Department of Integrative Neurophysiology, CNCR, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Front Synaptic Neurosci. 2012 Aug 2;4:3. doi: 10.3389/fnsyn.2012.00003. eCollection 2012.
The majority of adolescents report to have smoked a cigarette at least once. Adolescence is a critical period of brain development during which maturation of areas involved in cognitive functioning, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), is still ongoing. Tobacco smoking during this age may compromise the normal course of prefrontal development and lead to cognitive impairments in later life. In addition, adolescent smokers suffer from attention deficits, which progress 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 underlie the lasting effects on cognitive function. In particular, the expression and function of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) are changed and this has an impact on short- and long-term plasticity of glutamatergic synapses in the PFC and ultimately on the attention performance. Here, we review and discuss these recent findings.
大多数青少年报告至少吸过一次烟。青少年时期是大脑发育的关键时期，在此期间，参与认知功能的区域（如内侧前额叶皮质（mPFC））的成熟仍在继续。在此期间吸烟可能会干扰前额叶发育的正常过程，并导致以后生活中的认知障碍。此外，青少年吸烟者存在注意力缺陷，这些缺陷会随着吸烟年限的增加而加重。最近在啮齿动物中的研究揭示了青少年尼古丁暴露引起的分子变化，这些变化改变了 PFC 中突触的功能，并为认知功能的持久影响奠定了基础。特别是，代谢型谷氨酸受体（mGluRs）的表达和功能发生改变，这对 PFC 中谷氨酸能突触的短期和长期可塑性以及最终的注意力表现产生影响。在这里，我们回顾和讨论这些最新发现。
