Department of Integrative Neurophysiology, CNCR, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2012 Dec 1;2(12):a012120. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a012120.
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.
超过 70%的青少年报告至少吸过一次烟。在青少年阶段，大脑尚未完全成熟。前额叶皮层（PFC）是负责执行功能和注意力表现的大脑区域之一，是最后成熟的大脑区域之一，并且在青少年时期仍在发育。青少年吸烟会增加日后患精神疾病和认知障碍的风险。此外，青少年吸烟者存在注意力缺陷，而且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，从而对认知功能产生持久的影响。在这里，我们对这些最新发现进行了概述。
