Monday, February 11, 2013

The Results Around The Brain After Smoking

The Effects on the Brain After Smoking


Nothing New


Smoking was first identified as a risky behavior in the 1964 study, "Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service." Periodically since then, researchers have identified hundreds of conditions, beginning with lung cancer and respiratory ailments that are directly attributed to the toxins in cigarettes. The "buzz" caused by smoking is actually caused by the decrease in blood flow through the brain, a constriction that can result in stroke, a condition that affects more that half a million Americans each year. In addition to strokes caused by constriction of blood vessels in the brain, a number of chemical changes are caused by nicotine in the blood that circulates the brain affecting its function as the nerve-center of the human body. International studies conducted over the lifetimes of thousands of smokers are assembling pictures of smoking's effects on the brain.


More Research


In a British study, researchers studied the cognitive abilities of over 400 people over a 55-year period showed a drop in thinking ability of 1 percent by the smokers and theorized that the loss of cognitive function might have something to do with "oxidative stress"---an accumulation of destructive chemicals called free radicals that can damage cellular tissue and neurons. Research at the University of Michigan has concentrated on the effect of nicotine on endogenous opioids, chemicals that control sensations and dopamine, another chemical that interacts with the opioids to produce sensations of pleasure. Positive emission tomography (PET) scans have documented nicotine's stimulation of these chemicals in some areas of the brain and suppression in others that are very similar to reactions that cause feelings experienced with the use of "hard" drugs like heroin. The findings indicate that nicotine addiction, like other drug addictions, begins in the brain. Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany have used proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to investigate chemical and neural changes and have concluded that reduced levels of N-acetylaspartate, an amino acid that is suppressed by nicotine, may be linked to drug abuse, alcoholism and several psychological disorders like schizophrenia, dementia and bipolar disorder. They have also isolated causes of cell breakdown that are directly attributable to the presence of nicotine in the brain.


Worrisome Links


The effects of second-hand smoke on children have been documented since the 1990's. More disturbing than smoking's effects on children or adult brains, however, is emerging research concerning the effects of maternal smoking on prenatal brains. According to French scientists, mothers who smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day deliver chemicals to their fetuses that result in fragmented sleep patterns which persist after birth. Researchers believe that these erratic sleep patterns predispose children to several neurocognitive conditions including attention and impulsivity problems as well as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).









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