VIOLENCE, POT MAY DAMAGE MINDS

Influences During Adolescent Growth Spurt Under Examination

The discovery that the brain undergoes a second growth spurt during
adolescence has potential implications not only for teen driving but
also for other behavioral problems that have their roots in this
period of development.

Just as bad experiences or the absence of proper stimulation can
stunt a young child's brain during the first surge in brain growth,
too much of the wrong kind of stimulation may adversely affect the
vulnerable adolescent brain, researchers say.

For example, brain-imaging studies show that if normal, healthy
adolescents are exposed to violent videos for a long time, they show
similar neural network patterns in the areas governing emotions and
self-control as youngsters who are chronically aggressive, according
to two Indiana University School of Medicine researchers.

Viewing violent videos does not turn all adolescents into aggressors,
of course. But scientists now want to know what might make some
youngsters more vulnerable to aggression after watching violent scenes.

"The brain is reacting biologically to the experiences that the
teenagers are having," said clinical psychologist William
Kronenberger, who worked with radiologist Dr. Vincent Mathews on the study.

Heavy marijuana smoking also can restructure the adolescent brain in
ways that are disturbingly similar to the neural pathways found in
schizophrenics, said Dr. Sanjiv Kumra and Dr. Manzar Ashtari of the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Like the Indiana team, the researchers used magnetic resonance
imaging, or MRI, to peer into the brain. In this case they compared
the brains of adolescent schizophrenics and healthy teens who had
smoked marijuana heavily for a year. Repeated exposure to marijuana,
they found, might interfere with development of the fiber bundles
connecting the brain area that processes speech to the frontal cortex
where executive decisions are made.

"The same pattern of abnormalities that you could see in
schizophrenia you could also see in adolescents who don't have
schizophrenia but who just smoke marijuana," Kumra said.

Several studies of adolescent marijuana smokers suggest that they are
two to four times more likely to develop schizophrenia than
nonsmokers, she said.