Adolescent Drug Use
Drug use and abuse are major problems in global health care, costing countries like ours billions of dollars per year. Human “recreational” drug use reaches a peak during adolescence, and adolescent drug use can lead to long-term drug addiction in vulnerable individuals. That's why members of the Frantz Laboratory at GSU investigate drug effects in periadolescent rats using an intravenous (i.v.) drug self-administration paradigm. Rats are allowed to press a lever in an operant chamber (Skinner box) and their lever-pressing behavior is reinforced with the i.v. infusion of a drug, such as cocaine. In the Frantz et al. 2006 article, adolescent male rats were just as vulnerable to the reinforcing effects of cocaine as adults males were. Given that rat brains and human brains are actually quite similar, this study suggests that human adolescents experience the same vulnerability to cocaine dependence as adults. Compounded by altered responsivity to stress, immature decision-making skills, high novelty-seeking, and social factors leading to drug experimentation (e.g. increased free time, cash flow, and independence), human adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to initiating an addiction cycle with drugs.

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