14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators in Ireland managed to get some new insight into the way smokers and non-smokers' brains function. The results of the work could help people who are trying to quit smoking do so easier than currently possible.
What the team was interested in finding out was whether brain activity patterns were different for people who smoke from people who don't, or from individuals who did, but managed to quit the habit.
Another goal of the study was to determine whether those who managed to stop smoking had extra, unique mental skills, or just managed to do so through willpower and determination alone.
The research team used an observations technique called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to conduct this investigation. This approach allows scientists to look at how blood flows through certain areas of the brain, as the latter become activated or inhibited.
Using data from past studies – which established which area of the brain controls which behavior or ability – experts were then able to determine how the cortex handles quitting the habit.
This investigation was led by experts in Dublin, at the Trinity College and the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society, PsychCentral reports. The group analyzed brain scans for three groups of test subjects – smokers, non-smokers and former smokers.
All participants were surveyed as they were performing tasks that the research team set up in such a way so as to assess certain cognitive skills. These skills were previously determined to be rather important for refraining from smoking.
One of the most interesting discoveries was that smokers tended to exhibit lower levels of neural activities in the prefrontal cortex in the brain. This area is believed to play an important role in controlling behavior, experts say.
On the other hand, smokers showed more intense activation patterns in sub-cortical brain regions believed to play a role in perceiving the value of a reward, in this case the nicotine in tobacco.
Scientists with the research team therefore believe that people who stopped smoking tend to exhibit more neural activation in areas of the brain that can be considered to underlay willpower.
As such, improving self-control is one of the most suitable ways for smokers to prepare when they decide they want to quit the habit. Increased mental discipline aids them more than nicotine patches and other similar contraptions.