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Brain scan can tell if a smoker will quit

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, January 31, 2011 7:12 EST
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WASHINGTON — US researchers have found a way to predict how successful a smoker will be at quitting by using an MRI scan to look for activity in a region of the brain associated with behavior change.

The scans were performed on 28 heavy smokers who had joined an anti-smoking program, according to the study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Health Psychology.

Participants were asked to watch a series of commercials about quitting smoking while a magnetic resonance imaging machine scanned their brains for activity.

After each ad, subjects in the study “rated how it affected their intention to quit, whether it increased their confidence about quitting, and how much they related to the message,” researchers explained.

Those who showed activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during the ads were “significantly linked to reductions in smoking behavior” in the month that followed, regardless of how the people said they were affected by the ad.

“What is exciting is that by knowing what is going on in someone’s brain during the ads, we can do twice as well at predicting their future behavior, compared to if we only knew their self-reported estimate of how successful they would be or their intention to quit,” said lead author Emily Falk.

“It seems that our brain activity may provide information that introspection does not,” added Falk, director of the Communication Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Michigan.

She said researchers would next try to determine which kind of messages were most effective by matching brain activity to the ads.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and took place at University of California, Los Angeles.

Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
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  • Anonymous

    Not sure about this. I was smoking 3 packs a day when I quit cold turkey at age 35. Admittedly, I meditated several months on why I smoked and what I viewed as my self image as a smoker. Once I got all this lined up I quit based on something my wife said about the fact I could never quit. Not sure anyone I worked with saw my quiting as coming. Not sure if I had had a brain scan two years prior would predict it.

  • Anonymous

    Smokings sucks ass, thats why quitting was not very hard.

    If you are used to feeling like shit all the time it will be hard to stay quit. Some people seem to take a sick pleasure in treating their bodies like a toxic waste dump.

    The whole FSC nastiness made even the occasional cig an impossibility.

    Just do heroin, its way more fun.

  • Anonymous

    I loved smoking. If I found out I was going to die next month, I would start up again in a heartbeat. I can’t think of anything that had a more relaxing effect on me that is legal.
    My boss gets really annoyed when I drink scotch in the office.

  • Johnny Warbucks

    Wonderful news! How much does the scan cost and who pays for it?

  • Anonymous

    Just get the shots.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/UR4DHHC3P6RRXIUP4LWX54YN7I hu

    B.S., quitting smoking is easy – I’ve done it dozens of times

  • http://www.costarikker.blogspot.com Motelcalifornia

    Hmmmmm….I don’t know

  • Anonymous

    Wow. 28 isn’t even a mathematically viable sample size, and they’re saying this is some kind of psychological marvel? How can you say there is some sort of link when there was no apparent filtering done and your sample size isn’t even mathematically sound?

    Not only that, but this study broadly implies sociological factors such as stress levels, financial caste, support networks, and personal history are non-factors, and that somehow television ads can be the sole influence on people to quit smoking. I can’t believe any money even went to this study. Seriously a waste of taxpayer dollars.

  • http://truthisscary.com/?p=10867 Brain Scan Can Tell if a Smoker Will Quit or Not | Truth Is Scary

    [...] RawStory [...]