The amount of people smoking cigarettes in the United States has been on the decline since it was first recorded in 1965, and is continuing to decline. This is largely because of the vast amount of research that has been put into showing how many negative health effects that smoking has on a person, as well as being an expensive and addictive habit. You may be looking for information on how to rid either yourself or someone you know from cigarettes, which “harms nearly every organ in the body” and is responsible for almost one in five deaths in the United States, usually because of premature deaths related to smoking-related diseases.
Many people start out at a young age and later on seek to quit for various reasons, but that can be very difficult because of the neuroplastic changes that occur because of long term nicotine consumption, a chemical in cigarettes and other tobacco products, which acts on receptors found in the brain. In fact, one neuronal receptor, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), is named for its activation by nicotine. nAChR is found extensively throughout the brain on neuronal cells and plays a significant role in brain plasticity.
Brain plasticity means that the brain can physically change it’s patterns of neuronal connections in response to various types of inputs it receives, such as learning, the environmental stress, or drugs. The brain regulates which neurons connect and how strongly they interact, leading to behavioral changes in a person.
This is where nicotine plays its role as an addictive substance, because when the nAChR is activated by nicotine, it initiates “long term potentiation,” the strengthening of neuronal connections in response to stimulus. Addictive learning is involved with the act of smoking cigarettes because nicotine directly activates the neurons involved with performing this behavior, and the reward system is activated. The neurons that are activated while a person smokes a cigarette are strengthening their output because of the effects of nicotine. This is why certain emotions, locations and smells (like smoke) can trigger a person’s desire to smoke. Even the hand motions of smoking and holding a cigarette will activate the neurons that have been over-strengthened and create a reward response in the brain.
Looking at the trial of quitting this habit from a neurological perspective reveals why quitting is so hard. A person who has smoked cigarettes for a large portion of their life has rewired their brain so that they need cigarettes in order to feel good, because that is a major part of their reward system (dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens). The brain seeks activation of the reward system and creates negative emotions to get the addict to perform the action and resolve its stress. Luckily, there are treatment options like medicine, nicotine replacement, and therapy to make it easier. Talk to your doctor for options that can assist you in your journey towards recovery.
Why Nicotine is so Hard to Quit
