January 25, 2007

breakthrough in understanding of the brain basis of cigarette addiction

A professor of clinical neuroscience commented on the finding, published in the journal Science, that patients with damage to a particular brain area find it easier to give up smoking.

Paul Matthews, MRC Clinical Research Professor, University of Oxford, Professor of Clinical Neurosciences, Imperial College and Vice-President for Imaging, Genetics and Neurology, GlaxoSmithKline, said:

“The problem people have in ‘kicking’ the smoking habit is cigarette craving- the urge to smoke. The most remarkable finding in this study is that damage to a particular brain area may block this urge. Now we can ask: could a functional neurosurgeon implant stimulation electrodes to do the same thing? Could there be a surgical ‘cure’ for smoking?”