Wednesday, August 4, 2010

New Findings Imply Exercise in Adolescence May Help Prevent Drug Abuse

ECN Magazine (Upton, NY) August 4:

"Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that daily physical exercise during adolescence decreases cocaine-seeking behavior in young adult rats. These results indicate that physical activity during adolescence may protect against cocaine abuse later in life. The researchers also found a gender disparity: In both exercising and sedentary animals, females exhibited more cocaine preference than males. The results will appear in the July 2010 issue of Behavioral Brain Research, now available online.  'This is a first step in trying to understand the connection between exercise and substance abuse,' said lead author Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, a neuroscientist with Brookhaven Lab and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Laboratory of Neuroimaging. 'We want to see how manipulating exercise will impact susceptibility to drug abuse and addiction.'"
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