Self-aware brain helps smokers quit Quitting the weed How the
brain responds to a personalised quit-smoking message can show
whether someone will still be smoking four months later, a US
study shows. The research, by a team at the University of
Michigan, was published today in Nature Neuroscience, and shows
that smokers who are more self-aware are more likely to kick the
habit when messages are tailored to their lifestyle. For the
study, the researchers recruited 91 smokers interested in
quitting - 44 females and 47 males - who smoked an average 16.7
cigarettes a day. The participants were involved in three face-
to-face sessions and follow-up telephone interviews. In the
first session, the participants answered a series of questions
about their health and attitudes towards smoking and quitting.
Their answers were then used to create tailored quit-smoking
messages. For the second session, the participants had two MRI
scans while completing two tasks - a task to examine brain
regions associated with processing