After certain head injuries, smokers may suddenly stop smoking, the brain network involved may be a target for fighting tobacco addiction
The brain is an incredibly complex organ, and most of the discoveries about its functions have been made thanks to people who have suffered some kind of accident (contusion, tumor, stroke, malformation). In these cases, by identifying the damaged part of the brain, it was possible to establish a relationship with the affected function, such as speech, memory or emotions.
In this case, the scientists analyzed the brain scans of people who quit nicotine without any problems soon after a brain injury. A team led by Juho Joutsa from the University of Turku in Finland has studied these spontaneous remissions in depth and identified a brain network that could play a key role in fighting addiction. Joutsa and colleagues describe this “addiction referral network” in scientific journal Nature Medicine.
Neuroscientists on the team analyzed the brain scans of 129 patients who had suffered a brain injury and were addicted to nicotine at the time. Almost one in three people stopped being a tobacco addict after the accident. However, its damage was located in different parts of the brain. By analyzing how these regions communicated, the researchers were able to identify a cohesive network. This “dependency remission network” is made up of, among other things, the insular cortex and parts of the cingulate and prefrontal cortex. Experts had previously linked these regions to addictive behavior. What is new, however, is the discovery that these circuits work together and that changes in these connections can facilitate smoking cessation.
The results are especially strong because the research team not only looked at functional connectivity, that is, how regions interact with each other, but also found anatomical evidence of the existence of networks, as some patients had white matter lesions that connect these networks. areas.
Furthermore, the group was able to show that damage to the newly discovered circuitry was associated with a lower risk of alcoholism in another 186 test subjects, indicating that the neural control circuitry also plays a role in other substance addictions.
According to the researchers, the discovery could help treat addictions more successfully in the future with brain stimulation techniques, for example, by targeting multiple regions simultaneously. In the United States, doctors already use these techniques to help people quit smoking. Until now, however, it was not clear which regions treatment should be targeted to be most effective.
REFERENCE
Brain injuries disrupting the addiction map for a common human brain circuit