MRI scans indicate that adolescents who chronically use methamphetamine experience greater and more widespread alterations in the brain than adults who abuse the drug, according to a study from the University of Utah and Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.
Published online February 10 in Molecular Psychiatry, the study results show decreased thickness in the gray matter of younger users' frontal cortex, which helps with the ability to organize, reason, and remember.
Lead author Dr. In Kyoon Lyoo, PhD, and colleagues also examined the subjects with diffusion-tensor MRI (DTI-MRI). They found changes in the adolescents' white matter that indicate possible damage to neurons, which relay information from one part of the brain to another. By comparison, the chronic adult meth users showed far less damage to the gray and white matter.
"The findings may help explain the severe behavioral issues and relapses that are common in adolescent drug addiction," Lyoo said in a release from the University of Utah Health Sciences.
Young people generally use smaller amounts of meth than adults, so the results may also indicate that it takes much less meth to cause greater damage in adolescent brains.
