"Researchers at Yale University tested working memory, the form used when keeping information in mind and manipulating it, among 41 adolescent smokers and 32 non-smokers. They also evaluated the teens' verbal learning and memory, attention, mood, symptoms of nicotine withdrawal and tobacco cravings. Both groups were similar in age, gender and education.
They found the teen smokers had impairments in the accuracy of their working memory, which contrasts with studies showing adult smokers actually have the same focused, sustained and selective attention, and improved working memory, compared with non-smoking adults."
The phenomenon of teen smoking still baffles me. In this day and age there is not a teen in the US who doesn't know that smoking is bad for him/her, and yet they smoke anyway.
So my hypothesis is that there is something wrong with these kids who smoke to begin with. This hypothesis makes me wonder if this self selected population of teen smokers didn't have these problems before they started smoking and they are self medicating with nicotine? Which comes first the poor cognitive functioning which influences the smoking, or the smoking which influences the poor cognitive functioning?
Comments