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Learning Objective #1: Describe a methodology for examining differences in brain activation using EEG.

Learning Objective #2: Verbalize the neurological development of adolescents that support the importance of the research.

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Adolescence is a developmental period encompassing remarkable hormonal, physiological, and behavioral change. It is also a critical period for brain, psychological and cognitive development. This raises the question of how cigarette smoking impacts the developing brain, both structurally and functionally. The median age for smoking onset is age 13. Research shows the brain continues to develop until the early 20’s. Complicating our understanding of the developmental neurobiology of adolescence are sociocultural influences and variability in the age and rate of pubertal development. We do not know how initiating cigarette smoking during adolescence affects the growing brain. Smoking has been related in adult populations to such variables as high levels of hostility, depression, low education levels and low socioeconomic status. Could neural changes due to cigarette smoking explain these relationships? The purpose of this pilot work is to select tasks on which smokers and nonsmokers differ. Electroencephalogram data will be collected on 10 subjects from age 13 to 21 while they perform tasks on a computer. Tasks which identify a difference in EEG data between smokers and nonsmokers will be used in a subsequent functional MRI study. Data analysis will include between and within groups differences, and inferential statistics.