Media release

From: Springer Nature

Neuroscience: Association between brain region size and smoking behaviour in teenagers

A frontal brain region may be associated with the initiation and maintenance of cigarette smoking behaviour in teenagers, according to a Nature Communications paper based on observational data from adolescents. The authors suggest that this region may be a potential biomarker for the early stages of nicotine addiction and could have future implications for its prevention and treatment.

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of adult death globally, and associated deaths are expected to reach 8 million per year worldwide by 2030. Previous research suggests that smoking initiation is most likely to occur during adolescence, a critical time for brain development, with most daily smokers developing nicotine dependence by age 18. However, the neural mechanisms underlying smoking initiation and sustenance during adolescence, especially the potential interactions between altered brain development and smoking behaviour, remain elusive.

Tianye Jia and colleagues analysed brain imaging and questionnaire data collected from 807 healthy adolescents enrolled in the IMAGEN project at ages 14, 19 and 23 years old. At each age, participants who self-reported that they have smoked a cigarette more than once in their lifetime were considered smokers. The authors suggest that a brain region, called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, is associated with the initiation and sustenance of cigarette smoking. They found that reduced gray matter volume in the left part of this region may be associated with increased likelihood of smoking initiation. Additionally, reductions in volume of the right part of this region may be associated with the maintenance of smoking. These differences in brain volume could also be associated with personality traits of novelty and sensation seeking, the authors suggest.