Award-Winning Teens Hope To Improve Lives Through Research

The winning projects of NIDA’s Addiction Science Award 2014, part of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, tackled emerging topics in addiction science. While their projects impressed the judges, it is the teens’ passion and desire to help improve lives that makes them winners. First Place: Lily Wei Lee, a high school senior from New York, found that e-cigarettes left significant nicotine residue on glass, vinyl floors, wood, and other household surfaces—also known as third-hand exposure. Her study was recently published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Second Place: Aakash Jain, a high school senior from Arizona, used computational analysis to model the brain’s GABA(A) receptor, which researchers believe is involved in diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and addiction. Third Place: Two high school juniors, Alexandra Ulmer and Sarayu Caulfield from Oregon, found that experienced multi-taskers were better at switching tasks and ignoring distractions, but were less able to focus on one single task—all behaviors controlled by the prefrontal cortex. Better Living Through Science The teens’ enthusiasm for science comes from their desire to improve health by increasing what we know about our brains and bodies. Each hopes their research will someday help prevent or treat diseases related to addiction and the brain. Lily wants to change the misconceptions around e-cigarettes. “It is incredibly important to...
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: blogs