Stop Smoking Help

People often view quitting smoking as a question of willpower - a problem of the mental world. But like all mental processes, addiction eventually boils down to physical matter, to our brains and the chemicals that reside within. Neurological studies have found that smoking causes long-term changes to various parts of the brain including the dopamine system involved in feelings of pleasure, and the amygdala, involved in emotional responses. Even cues associated with smoking such as the smell of smoke or the sight of a cigarette, can trigger distinctive patterns of activity in these areas, and are likely to contribute to the urges that smokers feel.

Now, Nasir Naqvi and colleagues from the University of Iowa have tracked down the neurons that control the addictive urges of smokers to a part of the brain called the insula. Located deep inside the brain, the insula is involved in emotion. It collects and processes sensory information from the rest of the body, and translates them into conscious emotional experiences, such as cravings, hunger or pain. And in doing this, the insula could control cravings for cigarettes in response to smoking-related cues.

Naqvi found compelling evidence for this by looking at several smokers who had suffered brain damage, often because of a stroke. Many of these smokers successfully kicked their habits, but in those with damage to their insulas, something more unusual happened.

While most people find quitting a long and difficult process, those with insula damage quit easily and immediately. They never touched a cigarette again, and most importantly, never felt the urge to do so. They completely lost their addiction to smoking and were 22 times more likely to do so than smokers with other types of brain damage.

Naqvi believes that becoming addicted to nicotine causes the insula to change, making smoking just as necessary a bodily need as hunger or thirst. The insula processes information about sights, smells and feelings that relate to smoking and anticipates both the pleasurable effects of nicotine and the negative effects of nicotine withdrawal. The end result is a strong and conscious urge to smoke, that disappears when the insula is damaged. As one patient said, his body just “forgot the urge to smoke”. More.

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