Pubdate: Mon, 03 Dec 2001
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: Penny Fannin, Science Reporter

STUDY FINDS STIMULANTS CAN HEAD OFF ADDICTION

Giving Ritalin or other stimulants to children with attention deficit 
hyperactivity disorder could reduce their chance of becoming drug 
addicts in later life.

A study has shown that rats given Ritalin during pre-adolescence 
undergo behavioural and neurological changes that make cocaine 
unappealing and that this state lasts into adulthood.

Some researchers have suggested exposure to stimulants in adulthood 
increases sensitivity to drugs of abuse, raising the possibility that 
children treated with Ritalin might be at greater risk of drug abuse 
later in life.

But Susan Andersen and colleagues at Harvard Medical School have 
provided evidence against this idea by injecting pre-adolescent rats 
with Ritalin and then examining their sensitivity to cocaine during 
adulthood.

Using place conditioning - a procedure in which rats learn to 
associate drug effects with particular environments - they found that 
rats treated with Ritalin as juveniles spent less time in places 
associated with cocaine use.

Rats given Ritalin in adulthood also spent less time in places 
associated with cocaine than normal animals, but the change was not 
as great as in the younger group, Dr Andersen said. "(Ritalin) 
exposure in developing rats seems to decrease responsiveness to 
cocaine's rewarding effects and increase responsiveness to its 
aversive effects," she said.

The research is published in the current issue of the journal Nature 
Neuroscience.

Daryl Efron, a paediatrician at Melbourne's Royal Children's 
Hospital, said the research was good news for parents of children who 
were treated with stimulants for the disorder.

"It really supports the clinical and epidemiological data that we 
have had previously suggesting that children with ADHD who are 
treated with Ritalin have less chance of substance abuse later in 
life," he said.
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