Smokers Have Less Gray Cells

Researchers from the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), the German National Metrology Institute, have carried out a study in an attempt to find out whether there is a link between the thickness of certain regions of the brain and smoking.

Their conclusion was that there actually is a certain region of the cerebral cortex of smokers, that is thinner than that of people who never smoked in their lives.

In order to get to this result, the researchers have compared the brains of 22 smokers with those of 21 individuals who have never smoked, AlphaGalileo reports.

In their search of a relation between cortical thickness and nicotine addiction, they used a magnetic resonance tomograph.

The measurements conducted at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Berlin gave high-resolution 3D images of the brain structure, which allowed researchers from Charité to determine the individual thickness of the cortex.

When the two groups were compared, the scientists concluded that in the case of smokers, the thickness of the medial orbito-frontal cortex was smaller than in the case of people who have never smoked.

Also, apparently the thickness decreased depending on the daily consumption of cigarettes and on the time the participants had been smoking.

Even if this link has been established, the researchers cannot say that smoking causes this cerebral region to become thinner, as they have not clearly established cause and effect.

The medial orbito-frontal cortex is a region that is responsible for reward, the making of decisions and impulse control.

Previous animal experiments have shown that nicotine changes the development of the brain and damages the neurocytes, but in the case of humans, researchers cannot rule out (yet) the possibility that the thinner frontal cortex region already existed before the participants started smoking.

So the question that comes out is whether smoking leads to this cerebral condition or whether a thinner cortex determines people to smoke.

To find out, further studies are necessary, including one that can establish whether the brain structure of smokers can come back to normal once they stopped smoking.