The report found that the mean age of those admitted was 19.68 years and 71.4 per cent were male with 28.6 per cent female.

More than 90 per cent of the overall bill came from dealing with the canisters of laughing gas, a major headache for authorities in the last few years.

"Unscrupulous vendors are supplying them. But they're dicing with young people's lives," said Dublin City councillor Danny Byrne

A study published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology was led by a consultant neuroradiologist at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, Seamus Looby.