Researchers found an answer to why people continue smoking despite the graphic warnings on cigarette packets. This is because brains of smokers react less to such images.
Researchers at the University of Montreal found that heavy smokers have modified emotional reactions when they see any images warning about the harm tobacco and smoking causes.
"We observed a bias depending on how smoking is portrayed," researcher Le-Anh Dinh-Williams, a student at the Centre de recherche de l'Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and the study's first author, said in a news release. She says that the aim of the researchers was to find out what makes smokers continue smoking despite the warnings.
She explained that the brains of smoker also react positively when they are shown smoking in a positive light. "They were also more affected by aversive non-smoking related images than by images of the specific negative consequences of smoking," Dinh-Williams added.
According to the researchers, a fifth of adults in the United States and Canada still smoke despite knowing the negative impact on health it has.
Stéphane Potvin, co-author of the study, explained that it is difficult for people to quit smoking easily. "Part of the explanation could certainly be because cigarettes 'trick' the brains of smokers," he said.
"Specifically, we discovered that the brain regions associated with motivation are more active in smokers when they see pleasurable images associated with cigarettes and less active when smokers are confronted with the negative effects of smoking," he added.
The researchers used functional-magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 30 chronic smokers to register what happened to their brain functions when exposed to smoking images. They found that certain parts of the brains reacted positively to images which showed people enjoying a smoke but the brain showed no reaction to images showing harmful effects of smoking.
A recent study on smoking showed that exposure of pregnant women to second hand smoke increases risk of premature births and miscarriage.
