Methamphetamine changes how brain works
This computer data also serve as a sad tutorial about the effect that meth exposure has on the bodies, minds and emotions of children.
Entry No. 231 is a 3-year-old boy. "Appears afraid," according to a nurse's notes. The same little boy came to the Children's Justice Center a year ago to have his hair tested for drugs. He was positive for meth then, and a year later he is positive again.
Entry No. 111: "Behavioral acting out, nosebleed, skin irritations, eye irritation, abdominal pains, decreased appetite." The child is 4.
Another entry: "Difficulty falling asleep, nightmares, developmental delays." This is a 7-year-old boy.
About 100 children a year come to the center on orders from the court, law enforcement or social workers. They have tremors, twitches, convulsions, anxiety, paranoia, weight loss and other signs of neglect. They are hard to get to sleep and hard to wake up.
Sometimes, after kids are out of the meth environment, they crash just like their parents do after a binge.
Nicola Erb, an epidemiologist at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, has participated in several studies of houses where meth production and use was simulated.
"Meth covers everything. It covers their toys. It covers their skin. It covers what they crawl upon. It covers everything," she told colleagues recently while in Salt Lake City.
Penny Grant is a University of Oklahoma pediatrician who studies meth effects on children. "The kids are eating it. They're inhaling it. They're ingesting it. They're getting it every way you can think of," she said.
And what worries doctors and child advocates most is, they simply don't know the long-term effects of Utah's meth epidemic on children exposed to the drugs.
"We just don't know what's going to happen to these kids," said Jeanlee Carver, who supervises children's medical treatment at the Children's Justice Center. "Will it be social problems? Will it be violence? Will it be paranoia?"
Will children suffer brain damage as research shows adult addicts do?
Methamphetamine changes how the brain works. It mimics neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine, which regulates the feel-good mechanism in the body.
"This stuff does become a brain toxin," said Glen Hanson, a University of Utah neuropharmacologist.
Usually neurons recycle dopamine. But meth fools neurons into taking it up just like they would dopamine. Once inside a neuron, the drug causes it to release lots of dopamine. The dopamine rush causes an extra sense of pleasure that can last all day.
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