Researchers ca predict smokers chance of relapsing based on brain activity

Whether a person may or may not be able to quit smoking may depend heavily on activity in the brain's self-control center, according to a new study.

Researchers from  Penn Medicine used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural activity of 80 smokers seeking treatment. Participants were between ages 18 and 65, and reported smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day for more than six months.

"The neural response to quitting even after one day can give us valuable information that could inform new and existing personalized intervention strategies for smokers, which is greatly needed," said Dr. James Loughead, associate professor of Psychiatry and lead author of the study, in a press release.

"This is the first time abstinence-induced changes in the working memory have been shown to accurately predict relapse in smokers," said senior author  Caryn Lerman, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry and director of Penn's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Nicotine Addiction, who also serves as deputy director of Penn's Abramson Cancer Center.

The study's lead author James Loughead, PhD, associate professor of Psychiatry said: "The neural response to quitting even after one day can give us valuable information that could inform new and existing personalized intervention strategies for smokers, which is greatly needed." Indeed, smoking in the U.S. is at an all-time low in adults; however, there are still 42 million Americans who do smoke, including teenagers and young adults.

While the cause of the brain's changes after smoking aren't definitively known, previous Penn Medicine research has shown that when people go off nicotine, there are decreases across brain regions involved in cognitive control and goal-directed thoughts, as well as poorer cognitive performance. Many complain that it's harder to concentrate after quitting smoking, Lerman noted.

"[That's] in part because nicotine increases activity to those parts of the brain and the brain is used to that," she said. "When you stop, there's no more nicotine to activate those brain regions, and you tend to have decreased activity in cognitive control and goal direction."

"So stopping smoking itself makes it more difficult to stay off cigarettes- [it] compromises exactly those processes that you need to be successful," Lerman said.