Researchers have managed to map an “addiction network” in the brain in long-term smokers who stopped smoking abruptly after brain injury. The authors of the study, published today in Nature Medicine, hope the research findings could help fight nicotine addiction, as well as other types of addiction.
The scientists studied 129 patients with brain injuries who smoked daily. More than half continued to smoke after the injury, but a quarter immediately banned tobacco and said they didn’t even need it anymore.
Those who lost the urge to smoke had damage to one of three areas: the dorsal cingulate cortex, the lateral prefrontal cortex, or the insula, or other areas of the brain with strong connections to these three areas. This is what the scientists consider to be the “addiction network”.
In contrast, the smoking cessation group had no damage in a fourth important region of this network: the medial prefrontal cortex. This brain region, in the middle of the forehead, seems to have an inhibitory effect on activity in other brain parts of the network.
In another study, the scientists found that the same kind of brain damage is also linked to alcoholism. “This points to a shared network of addiction through these substances,” it sounds.
According to the study’s author, Juho Joutsa, a neurologist at the Finnish University of Turku, the identified network provides a testable target for treatment attempts. “Some of the network’s nodes in the cortex can be reached with non-invasive neuromodulation techniques,” Joutsa said.
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