Smoking Addiction Solved

Los Angeles, CA - A new study by researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) has shown that damage to a small sacagawea dollar-sized portion in brain may completely erase humans' urges to smoke. Researchers are hopeful the findings will help reveal the mystery behind other addictions and feel confident they have discovered a new way to control them.

"One of the most difficult problems in any form of addiction is the difficulty in stopping the urge to smoke, to take a drug, or to eat for that matter. My early research, which involved duck taping obese people to extremely heavy objects and depriving them of food, showed that addicts will go to some pretty extreme measures to satistfy their cravings. Now we have identified a brain target for further research into dealing with nicotine urges, and these stroke patients have performed radically different in the duck tape scenarios," says Antoine Bechara of USC and the University of Iowa, author of the study.

Brain scans of 69 stroke victims revealed that 19 patients sustained damage to a specific region deep in the brain called the insula. Thirteen of the insula-damaged patients had quit smoking with very little effort.

Since these patients reported losing the urge to smoke so abruptly with little or no effort, the USC team concluded that insula damage reduced the patients' actual urge to smoke. The study suggests brain damage as a possible option for people trying to kick the habit. USC is reviewing plans to open a free clinic to perform outpatient insulotomies.