The Smoking Brain: It's All About Perception and Product

Statistics show that overall, 1 out of 2 smokers will die from tobacco use. Yet despite warnings, many continue to practice the deadly habit.

A recent study conducted by the Institute Universitaire en santé mentale de Montreal and Universite de Montreal looks at how certain products may influence individuals perception of smoking, and thus, make them more susceptible to engaging in the practice.

Findings showed that chronic smokers typically altered emotional reactions when they were exposed to negative and positive images associated with tobacco products.

"We observed a bias depending on how smoking is portrayed ", explained Le-Anh Dinh-Williams, a student at the Centre de recherche de l'Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and the study's first author, via a press release. "For example, the brains of the smokers in our study were more aroused by images that showed smoking in a positive light than by images that encouraged them to stop. They were also more affected by aversive non-smoking related images than by images of the specific negative consequences of smoking."

Findings show that despite their best efforts to quite, 70 to 95 percent of smokers will start the habit again within one year.

"Many factors make it difficult for people to quit. Part of the explanation could certainly be because cigarettes 'trick' the brains of smokers," stated Stéphane Potvin, a co-author of the study and researcher at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Université de Montréal, via the release. "Specifically, we discovered that the brain regions associated with motivation are more active in smokers when they see pleasurable images associated with cigarettes and less active when smokers are confronted with the negative effects of smoking."

For the study, researchers used neuroimaging techniques to compare the emotional reactions of 30 smokers while they looked at aversive smoking-related images, including lung cancer, when compared to other aversive images, such as appetitive images and appetitive smoking-related images.

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More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry.