adolescents versus adults (He and Crews, 2007). Although the length of the cell cycle is similar between adults and adolescents (Cameron and McKay, 2001), little is known about the cell cycle or the reaction of NSC to various factors during adolescence. Obviously, further studies need to be conducted on the effects of alcohol on cell cycle dynamics. Unfortunately, a well-designed comparison is hampered by the dissimilar alcohol pharmacokinetics between adults and adolescents (Walker and Ehlers, 2009). Collectively, these data support that adolescents have a unique response to alcohol: some observations were quite similar to the adult condition (e.g. alcohol intoxication inhibits neurogenesis, cell death does not appear to be apoptotic) but other observations are more similar to development (e.g. alcohol targeting the cell cycle). Although these data do not suggest greater effects of alcohol on neurogenesis in adolescent rats than adults, these observations support that the adolescent brain reacts uniquely to alcohol and warrants independent investigation (Crews et al., 2007; Spear, 2000).
