Smoking and the brain cortex
The research comes courtesy the University of Edinburgh and the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University and was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. Their approach was simple: they looked at MRI scans of older smokers, with an average age of 73. The subjects were from a group called the ‘Lothian Birth Cohort 1936’ who were part of a Scottish mental health survey in 1947.
Some of them still smoked, some quit recently and others had quit smoking for longer. They found those who quit only recently had thinner brain cortices (the plural of ‘cortex’) than those who’d quit for a longer period of time. Those who still smoked have the thinnest cortices.
Even smokers who had smoked for more years overall but quit for a longer period of time tended to have thicker brain cortex than smokers who smoked a shorter period but quit more recently. The study, researchers say, gives hope that quitting allows the brain to recover some or all brain cortex thickness. Dr. Ian Dreary, Director of the Centre for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology, lead the study and said results show quitting smoking helps brain health, too.
“It is important to know what is associated with brain health in older age,” he said. “From these data we have found a small link between smoking and having thinner brain grey matter in some regions. There are findings in our study that could suggest that stopping smoking might allow the brain’s cortex to recover some of its thickness, though we need further studies conducted with repeat measures to test that idea.”
Brain cortex: thought, perception, memory
The brain cortex, also known as the cerebral cortex, is the outer layer of our brains, and it’s important. As noted in a definition from a site called medicinenet.com: “The cerebral cortex is responsible for the processes of thought, perception and memory and serves as the seat of advanced motor function, social abilities, language, and problem solving.”
That sound like an area of your brain you wanna mess with?
The researchers examined data from 244 men and 260 women and interviewed each on their smoking habits, past and present. It is the largest study to ever look at smoking and the cerebral cortex.
