Lungs Picture Biography
(Source google.com)
Study: Take a group of people and, after standardized
personality testing, divide them into two groups: a "high" hostile
group characterized by more anger, aggression and anxiety as compared to a
"low" hostile group. Include smokers and nonsmokers in both the
"high" and the "low" hostile groups. Ask everyone to wear nicotine patches and then give them all
brain scans. Obtain some interesting results. Nicotine triggered increased
brain activity in the "high" hostile group -- whether they were
smokers or not. (The "high" hostile smokers did need more nicotine to
achieve a response comparable to the "high" hostile nonsmokers.) By
contrast, there were no metabolic changes in the brain cells of the
low-hostility participants. The results suggest that "high" hostile
people respond to nicotine more than "low" hostile people.
Conclusion: In people who have aggressive personalities,
nicotine triggers significant brain activity in the areas that help control
social response, thinking and planning. Comment: Does this mean that hostile people are more likely
to start smoking in the first place and can be expected to have a harder time
if they then decide to quit smoking, Nicotine study provides first results showing personality
traits, brain activity and Why are some people hopelessly addicted to
cigarettes, while others seemingly can quit at will? A UC Irvine College of
Medicine study reveals for the first time the underlying brain mechanisms that
link personality traits to nicotine addiction.
It has been long established that hostile personality traits
are related to cigarette dependency and smoking cessation difficulties. Now UCI
researchers have found that in people who have aggressive personalities
nicotine triggers significant brain activity in the areas that help control
social response, thinking and planning. In turn, non-hostile people showed no
brain activity increases at all to nicotine. These findings suggest that some
people are born with a predisposition to cigarette addiction and helps explain
why quitting for some is practically impossible. "We call this brain response a 'born to smoke'
pattern," said study leader Dr. Steven Potkin, professor of psychiatry and
human behavior. "Based on these dramatic brain responses to nicotine, if
you have hostile, aggressive personality traits, in all likelihood, you have a
predisposition to cigarette addiction without ever having even touched a
cigarette." Study results appeared in the January issue of Cognitive Brain
Research.
Potkin and Dr. James H. Fallon, professor of anatomy and
neurobiology, gave study subjects standard psychiatric personality exams and
separated them into two groups - those with high-hostility personality traits,
which are marked by anger, aggression and anxiety, and those with low-hostility
traits. Both groups included smokers and non-smokers. The groups were given
nicotine patches of strengths of 3.5 or 21 milligrams, or placebo, and later
subjected to PET scans to see if the nicotine triggered any responses in brain
metabolism of glucose energy.
While the PET scans showed no metabolic changes in the
low-hostility subjects, nicotine induced dramatic metabolic responses in the
high-hostility group individuals in the limbic system and the cortical and
subcortical sectors of the brain. Among members of the high-hostility group,
smokers showed a metabolic reaction only to the more powerful 21 milligram
nicotine patch, while non-smokers reacted to both patches. The fact that non-smokers in the high-hostility group showed
a significant metabolic response to nicotine provides the first biological
evidence that people with high-hostility personalities are likely to become
dependent on cigarettes because of their brains' strong response to nicotine,
said Potkin. "In turn, this might also help explain why other people have
no compelling drive to smoke or can quit smoking with relative ease," he
added.
Potkin and his fellow UCI researchers are continuing their
nicotine-PET scan study, looking into the role that gender and other traits may
play in cigarette addiction. David Keator, James Mbogori and Jessica Turner of the
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at UCI assisted with the study. It
was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health to the UCI Transdisciplinary
Tobacco Research
Use Center,
which was established to conduct scientific studies of the different social,
cultural and biological factors that lead to smoking behavior.
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