In a recent report in Science, Antoine Bechara and his colleagues at USC interviewed 69 people who had smoked at least six cigarettes per day for more than two years before experiencing brain injury [1].
Of the 69 people in the study, 19 had damaged the insula, an area of the brain located within the lateral fissure separating the temporal lobe from the frontal and parietal lobes. Among its many apparent functions, the insula appears to participate in cravings for food or drugs. Twelve of the 19 patients (70%) with insular damage quit smoking immediately as opposed to only 8% of the 50 patients whose brain damage was in other locations.
The researchers were unable to account for the fact that one of the remaining insular patients quit with considerable effort, and the other 6 did not quit at all. Nonetheless, a greater understanding of the role of the insula in craving nicotine might open doors to new, innovative treatments for people addicted to tobacco.
1. Naqvi, N.H., Rudrauf, D., Damasio, H., & Bechara, A. (2007). Damage to the insula disrupts addiction to cigarette smoking. Science, 315, 531-534.
5 Comments
toniobrown · January 31, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Getting rid of the addiction with no effort! At first this report sounds amazing. But this report doesn’t show any side effects for the removal of the insula. In fact, it doesn’t even say the all main functions of the insula. If the function of the insula is involved with the feeling of reward, I don’t think I would want that removed. People have been trying to quit this addiction for years and still haven’t succeeded, but lesioning off part of my brain is too extreme to get rid of an addiction. I think before I make the decision of trimming a piece of my brain off it would be nice if more research was done on the subject. Actually, I would just stick to the patch.
ssheridan · February 5, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I would much rather buy the patch and suffer from withdrawl then have a part of my brain removed. The article didn’t mention this but there are probably side effects and risks associated with removing the insula. In the article it said that it didn’t even work for all the participants! It took my gramma almost ten years to completely quit, but she did and she still has a key part of her brain. The insula is responsible for the reward system and I wouldn’t want to go through life never having those feelings again even if it meant giving up one thing i craved. i don’t have a major addiction so maybe I don’t understand, but none surgical ways of stopping addiction seem a lot safer.
Laura Freberg · February 15, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Lesioning the insula is not an option, but it is interesting how we are able to localize the source of some behaviors. It might ultimately be possible, however, to diminish the activity of the relevant areas by using transcranial magnetic stimulation.
huggydrea · March 11, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I agree that it is very interesting to think about this and that a surgical technique like this seems pretty scary. However, I think it is important to do things like to expand what you know and then work on makin it safer/better. My grandmother smokes and she is killing herself, I would love to learn about ways to help her.
genevieve · May 18, 2007 at 6:52 pm
This affected these people’s addiction to nicotine, but it would be interesting to know if any of these people were overweight before the accident, and if the damage to the insula changed their eating habits. I know some people consider overeating just as much of an addiction as cigarettes, and if the insula is related to food and drug cravings it may have had some influence on their weight.
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