In Madison, important research is looking at the impact of nicotine on adolescent rats, which may show why some young human smokers become addicted quickly.
Also funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, studies by Charles Landry, an assistant professor in psychiatry at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, have shown that brains of young rats show a dramatic response to an injection of nicotine equivalent to two or three cigarettes. Adult rats do not show the same response.