14 DAY TRIAL // Several studies have shown that smoking is bad for the lungs and even for the cardiovascular system. It just so happens that this vice is also bad for the brain. Specifically, it can make it shrink and, in doing so, affect memory and other cognitive processes we really can't do without.
In a report published in yesterday's issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, specialists with the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University in Canada and their colleagues at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland underline the negative effects that smoking has on the human brain.
Documenting how smoking can impair memory
In the paper detailing their work, the researchers explain that, as part of this research project, they looked at the brains of 244 male and 260 female volunteers. Of these people, some were current smokers or ex-smokers. A third group was made up of non-smokers.
With the help of MRI scans, the scientists studied the volunteers' cortex. They found that, in the case of the current smokers included in this study, this specific brain region, which handles memory, language and perception, was considerably thinner than it was in the ex-smokers or in the non-smokers.
Admittedly, the average age of the study participants was 73 and previous studies have shown that the cortex thins on its own as an individual grows older. However, the specialists insist that this thinning was more pronounced in the case of the current smokers whose brains they analyzed.
Mind you, there is a thin silver lining to this study
The somewhat good news is that, by the looks of it, the brain has the ability to recover and plump up its cortex if and only if a person commits to quitting smoking once and for all. The thing is that this recovery process is a fairly lengthy one.
As explained by the McGill University and the University of Edinburgh specialists behind this investigation, evidence indicates that, even 25 years after quitting smoking, a person's cortex will still be ever so slightly thinner than that of an individual who had never tried a cigarette in their life.
“We found that current and ex-smokers had, at age 73, many areas of thinner brain cortex than those that never smoked,” says researcher Sherif Karama. Furthermore, “Smokers should be informed that cigarettes could hasten the thinning of the brain’s cortex, which could lead to cognitive deterioration.”