A study conducted by researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy indicated that physical exercise as an adolescent can decrease cocaine-seeking behavior, at least in young adult rats, as shared in a feature on PhysOrg.com.
According to the feature, what these results may show is that the same effect may be achieved in human subjects; this makes physical activity as an adolescent as a potential deterrent for cocaine abuse. The results of the study were published online through the journal Behavioral Brain Research.
Lead author Panayotis Thanos, a neuroscientist at the Brookhaven Lab and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Laboratory of Neuroimaging, shared: “This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse. We want to see how manipulating exercise will impact susceptibility to drug abuse and addiction.”
The researchers worked on the premise that physical activity results in an improvement in the way the brain processes dopamine, which is associated with the experience of pleasure and reward. Based on previous studies, the researchers decided to focus on how exercise during adolescence affected drug use later in life.
Thanos explained: “The major idea in this paper is that animals exposed to exercise during adolescence showed less preference for cocaine later in life. This hammers home the notion that exercise may play a valuable role in decreasing the risk of drug addiction.”
The study grouped animals into the control group, which remained sedentary, and the exercise group, which began working out during adolescence. The exercise consisted of running on treadmills five days a week over a period of six weeks; this continued into the conditioning and testing periods.
Tags: teen cocaine abuse, teen drug abuse, teen drug addiction, teen exercise
