Posted on: Monday, March 1, 2004

Smokers may be on a slow burn

By Jane E. Allen
Los Angeles Times

Some people may truly be born to smoke. A new study has found that the brains of men and women with naturally hostile, aggressive personalities respond more to nicotine than their nonhostile contemporaries.

This trait was identified by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. Dr. Steven Potkin, a psychiatry professor, led the study in which personality exams were given to smokers and nonsmokers who were then divided into two groups — one with anger, aggression and hostility, the other without. Participants got nicotine patches and underwent PET scans.

Among those with aggressive personalities, nicotine triggered significant metabolic changes in the parts of the brain that control social response, thinking and planning. Among those considered to have nonhostile personalities, nicotine created no apparent changes in the same brain regions. The differences may explain why some smokers have more trouble quitting than others. The study appears in the January issue of Cognitive Brain Research.