Does nicotine damage the developing adolescent brain?

From Nicotine science and policy Q & A by Clive Bates:

"No, this is a scare story and the claims do not bear scrutiny. Some public figures, including the US Surgeon General, have suggested that nicotine damages the adolescent brain. The evidence for this hypothesis comes only from a few rodent studies. These are an unreliable guide to human risk because the rodent brain does not offer a reliable proxy for the human brain and it is difficult to design experiments that are controlled to give a mouse equivalent exposure to a human.

But this is not the main reason for doubt. Over the last 60 years, millions of adolescent nicotine users have grown up as smokers and either continue to use nicotine or have quit. The problem for the Surgeon General and others is that there is no sign of any cognitive impairment in the population of former teenage smokers and many of today’s finest adult minds were once young smokers. If a detrimental cognitive effect of nicotine existed in the human population, it is inconceivable that we would not already have seen extensive evidence of it from the study of smokers, non-smokers and ex-smokers over several decades."

Further Reading

Why Journalists Should Stop Publishing Studies Conducted With Mice