INJURY SHUTS OFF URGE TO SMOKE
Subtitle: Stroke damage to site deep in brain eliminates desire,
researchers find
Source: Baltimore (MD) Sun
Date: 2007-01-26
Author: Michael Stroh Sun Reporter
URL:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.smoke26jan26,0,2586035.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
ID: 240972
In a finding that could lead to powerful new treatments for
smokers unable to quit, scientists have discovered that people
who experienced stroke damage to a prune-sized spot deep within
the brain suddenly lost the urge to light up.
The research, published today in the journal Science,
underscores nicotine's far-reaching grip on a smoker's neural
circuitry -- and how much there remains to learn about it. Until
now, addiction researchers have largely ignored the brain
structure implicated in the study -- a region called the
insula.
"It's a really tremendous paper, one that points us in a whole
new direction," says Steven Grant, who is chief of the clinical
neuroscience branch of the government's National Institute on
Drug Abuse and was not involved in the study. "It says: This is
a brain area the addiction field needs to focus a lot of
attention on." . . .
In the study, researchers at the University of Southern
California and University of Iowa looked at 69 smokers with
various brain injuries, mostly as the result of a stroke. All
the participants had smoked at least five cigarettes a day for
two years or more. . . .
Drug companies seeking new anti-smoking therapies are racing to
exploit the emerging understanding of how nicotine behaves in
the brain.
Last May, the Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer's
varenicline, sold under the trade name Chantix. It stimulates
the production of dopamine, the feel-good hormone that surges
through brain tissue in response to behaviors such as eating,
sex and smoking tobacco.
