How to Stop Smoke Signals

 

 

Yes, the ubiquitous text message is being explored as a tool for helping smokers kick the habit.

 

Elliot Berkman, an assistant professor of psychology, and his colleagues have published two studies that investigate the science of smoking cessation. In one, they isolated the brain regions most active in controlling urges to smoke. And in a second study, they demonstrated the effectiveness of cell-phone text messaging to measure and intervene in those urges.

 

The two studies looked at the same group of 27 heavy smokers, who had been recruited from the American Lung Association’s Freedom From Smoking program in Los Angeles.

 

In the first study, published in spring 2011 in Psychological Science, Berkman, along with co-authors Emily Falk at the University of Michigan and Matthew Lieberman at UCLA, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map areas of the brain responsible for impulse control.

 

Mapping these areas is important because an attempt to kick an unwanted habit such as smoking is “a war that consists of a series of momentary self- control skirmishes,” they said.

 

At the outset of this study, participants’ brains were scanned while they performed a variety of emotionally neutral activities involving impulse control, such as pushing or pulling a lever in response to certain letters and refraining from doing anything in response to the letter X. After the fMRI scans, subjects submitted to lung and urine tests and answered questions about their cravings and smoking habits.

 

The results suggest that a person’s ability to resist cravings can be both observed and predicted through fMRI testing. The data could then be used to tailor a cessation program to an individual’s specific needs.

 

“We are really excited about this result because it means that the brain activation we see in the scanner is predictive of real- world outcomes across a much longer time span than we thought,” said Berkman.

 

For the second study, the three researchers, along with Janna Dickenson of UCLA, investigated the use of text messaging as a potential tool to assist in smoking cessation. They sent eight text messages per day for three weeks, asking participants to document their ongoing cravings, mood and cigarette use.

 

The study, published in spring 2011 in Health Psychology, reveals that text messaging may be an effective delivery mechanism for interventions for a number of reasons. First, it is much cheaper than the $300-plus data collection devices used in other smoking interventions. Second, most people already possess the existing hardware (cell phones). Finally, the messages can be delivered almost instantaneously, minimizing the chance of memory biases in self-reporting.

 

Taken together, the fMRI and text message data explicitly connect the neurological and behavioral aspects of response inhibition—in other words, the neural mechanism for interrupting a habitual or unwanted behavior and the behavioral intervention to stop it.

 

—Eric Tucker