New Screening Tool May Alert of Teen Drug Addiction

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on March 4, 2017 under Addiction Trends, AZ Drug Rehab News | Comments are off for this article

A new screening test is being developed to help alert parents and healthcare workers of a potential for abuse among teenagers. Prior research has proven that young people who score high on novelty seeking tests are more likely to develop drug or alcohol addictions in the future. However, scientists believe they may have found a better way to determine the potential for addiction in teenagers. By using a brain scanning test called Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MID), researchers believe they get more accurate results and therefore they can potentially help more patients avoid a life of drug and alcohol dependence.

In order to test their theory, scientists gathered 144 children who had taken and scored high on the novelty seeking tests. Novelty seeking is a personality trait associated with impulsiveness, extravagance, and disorderliness. In the past, teenagers who have scored high on these tests had slightly higher chances of becoming addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.

The researchers specifically chose the 144 young adolescents who had taken these tests because they scored high, but had not developed drug addictions. They then gave them a video game where the child could play for points that could eventually be converted into money. While the child was playing the game, they were also hooked up to an MRI. This is important because scientists are interested in measuring the brain as the child begins to plan for future rewards, like the amount of money they can earn while playing the game.

Traditionally, children show less brain activity than adults when they plan for future rewards. However, drug use diminishes this brain activity even further. So, the scientists are essentially getting a baseline and will monitor these children as they move through their teenage years. If any of the children develop an addiction towards drugs, the scientists will be able to compare their baseline brain activity to their present-day brain activity. They are looking to determine if drug use in teenagers is because of low brain activity (which can be caught and monitored) or if drug activity suppresses further brain activity.

The ultimate goal for these scientists however is to be able to one day diagnose people with future drug abuse, so the problem could be addressed before the individual started taking drugs in the first place.