Like conventional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes may function as a "gateway drug" that can prime the brain to be more receptive to harder drugs, U.S. researchers recently announced.
The findings add to the debate about the risks and benefits of electronic cigarettes, the increasingly popular devices that deliver nicotine directly without burning tobacco.
"With e-cigarettes, we get rid of the danger to the lungs and to the heart, but no one has mentioned the brain," said co-author Eric Kandel of Columbia University, whose findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.