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 Researchers reviewed brain scans of smokers who tried to quit and
found the people who succeeded had something in common: a stronger
connection between the insula, home to urges and cravings, and the
somatosensory cortex, which handles touch and motor control.
“The insula is believed to be where we are consciously aware of
physical sensations, such as pain, disgust, craving and emotions,”
lead study author Merideth Addicott, a researcher in psychiatry and
behavioral sciences at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina,
said by email.
While more research is needed to understand how the connection
between the two regions works, scientists believe the insula is
responsible for sending information on cravings to other areas of
the brain that then decide how to react.
“The somatosensory cortex is important for movement, and thus,
control over behavior, so it makes sense that it is also involved in
smoking cessation,” Addicott said.
To see what the brains looked like in smokers who quit, researchers
took magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 85 people one month
before they tried to stop smoking and then followed them for 10
weeks to see if they succeeded.
At the start of the study, participants typically smoked an average
of 19 cigarettes a day and had been smoking for around 19 years.
Their average age was 38, and slightly more than half of them were
women.
While participants got nicotine patches to help them quit, they
received little in the way of advice or additional cessation
support.
During the study period, about half of the smokers managed to quit.
The rest relapsed at some point, smoking at least one cigarette each
day for one week.
One shortcoming of the study is that it relied on participants to
truthfully report whether or not they smoked, and another drawback
is the lack of repeated MRIs throughout the study period, the
researchers acknowledge in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
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Still, the findings highlight activity in the brain that might be
targeted by future smoking cessation treatments, said Arthur Brody,
director of the Greater Los Angeles VA Smoking Cessation Programs
and a psychiatry professor at the University of California, Los
Angeles.
“The finding is novel in that it is the first to link greater
functional connectivity between the insula and the somatosensory
cortex with an improved likelihood of quitting or minimizing
smoking,” Brody, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“If the results of the current study are replicated, studies to
assess the effectiveness of somatic treatments that affect brain
circuitry may certainly be warranted.”
Many people don’t respond to currently available treatments for
smoking cessation, such as nicotine patches or drugs that target
cravings or nicotine receptors in the brain, said Amy Janes, a
psychiatry and addiction researcher at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Factors like genetics, duration of exposure to tobacco, stress,
other drug use, and psychiatric or medical disorders can affect
treatment success,” Janes, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by
email. “The effectiveness of a specific treatment may depend on
individual differences in factors like brain function and
communication between brain regions.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1AnunFM Neuropsychopharmacology, online May
13, 2015.
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