Mat Gendle, assistant professor of psychology, has recently published an article in the April 2004 edition of Behavioral Neuroscience.
Gendle, assisted by colleagues from the University of South Carolina and Cornell University, discussed the effects of cocaine on the body and the reasons for those effects. In the experiment, adult rats were used to find out how cocaine affects the body.
The experiment group found adult rats that had been exposed to low doses of cocaine in a prenatal stage were more easily distracted by stimuli than were non-exposed control animals.
In addition, the group discovered that cocaine-exposed animals also exhibited alterations in arousal regulation. Both areas of dysfunction have important consequences in humans, possibly affecting the school performance and social development of cocaine-exposed children.