Study Reveals Alarming Link Between Teen Smoking and Impaired Brain Development
Originally Published 2 years ago — by The Daily Beast
A new study published in Nature Communications has found that gray matter volume in the brain is linked to a desire to smoke during adolescence and affects the strength of nicotine addiction. Researchers analyzed brain imaging and self-reported smoking habits from over 800 young people and found that those who started smoking by age 14 had significantly less gray matter volume in the left and right frontal lobes. The findings suggest a potential link between brain development and smoking initiation, which could help in developing interventions to reduce teen smoking rates. However, further research is needed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship and understand the neurological variations across different populations.