Brain damage reveals smoking crave centre

Damage to the Insular Cortex of the brain, also known as the insula has caused smokers to stop smoking, according to a new study.

The study was carried out on 19 smokers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles , by neuroscientist Antoine Bechara and his team. The subjects had suffered insula damage as a result of neurological problems such as a stroke. Twelve of them immediately stopped smoking following the brain injury, reporting that they had no urges to smoke whatsoever, without relapses. One smoker who was smoking 40 a day, unfiltered, and had no urge to stop prior to his stroke reported that “my body forgot the urge to smoke”

The insula has previously been the subject of research in relation to addictions, a region of the brain located within a deep fold in the cerebral cortex. In brain scans of cocaine addicts, for example, the insula lights up in response to images of drug paraphernalia. Those kinds of images also tend to give addicts an urge to take more drugs. Similarly, videos of people smoking stimulate the insula in smokers' brains. Such work suggests that the insula helps generate addicts' drug-related urges.

According to Bechara, the findings may have implications for how to beat addiction. Based on the experiences related by the insula-damaged patients, he suspects that the insula is needed create the feeling that smoking is a bodily need. Bechara notes that other research has suggested that the bodily effects of smoking particularly the effects on the airways are a crucial part of the satisfaction smokers get from puffing away. If so, he speculates, smoking cessation therapies such as denicotinized cigarettes may ultimately prove more effective than nicotine patches because they provide physical sensations that stimulate the insula and satisfy the smoker.

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