'HUFFED' SOLVENTS ACT LIKE COCAINE ON BRAIN-STUDY

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The fumes from glue, lighters and other
solvents that children and young adults inhale go straight to the
same brain regions that are stimulated by cocaine and other drugs,
researchers said on Monday in a study that shed light on the appeal
of "huffing."

Brain scans show that chemicals such as toluene move very quickly to
pleasure centers -- then move out to other brain cells, causing the
damage that can make sniffers lose their memory, suffer vision
problems and eventually develop serious mental defects.

"It's the first time we've ever shown it," neuroanatomist Stephen
Dewey of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, who helped lead
the study, said in an interview.

"We have known it from behavioral studies -- people will report
euphoria and they will report highs. But we have never known this
class of chemicals, these toluenes, go to the dopamine centers of the
brain, much like cocaine."

Sniffing or huffing is of special concern because children like to do
it. Unlike illegal drugs such as cocaine, solvents are everywhere and
easily accessed by youngsters who quickly learn they can give a cheap
high.

"Like rubber cement -- you could roll it on your desk into a ball and
then sniff it," said Dewey, who works in his local schools to
discourage children from using drugs.

"I get questions from fourth, fifth, sixth graders. They huff butane
lighters," he said. "The most striking latest statistics suggest that
one in five eighth graders have done it."

Writing in the journal Life Sciences, Dewey and colleagues said they
injected toluene -- the chemical that causes the "high" from sniffing
- -- into baboons and then did PET scans of their brains and bodies.

"The images were really striking. None of us expected to see what we
saw," Dewey said.

The chemical went straight to clusters of brain cells that produce
dopamine -- a neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical
associated with pleasure.

"Then we watched it redistribute to the white matter in the brain.
And it goes to the kidneys just as quickly," he said.

This could explain the toxic side-effects of huffing or sniffing.
"What you see is over time is you get cortical atrophy, characterized
by changes in cognition, disorientation," Dewey said. Vision becomes
blurred and victims can become uncoordinated.

The team next plans to recruit adults who admit they sniff or huff
inhalants and do PET scans of their brains as they do.

"There is never a shortage of volunteers," said Dewey.

He expects the chemicals, when inhaled, will work even more quickly
than when injected.

The team chose toluene because it is one of the most common
industrial solvents, found in paints, glues, and other products
favored by huffers.