A pair of studies — conducted in part by University researchers — analyzing tobacco cessation have successfully isolated the brain regions active in controlling smoking urges, and have began experimenting with the relatively novel concept of using text messages to measure and mediate such urges.
In the first study, Elliot Berkman, a University psychology assistant professor, along with Emily Falk from the University of Michigan and Matthew Lieberman from the University of California, Los Angeles, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify areas of the brain where nicotine urges take place.
“Right when you have a craving, essentially you have to engage in a self-control task,” Berkman said. “What we found was that the brain regions that were active before they tried to quit correlated quite highly with who was successful at regulating their cravings in the real world and who wasn’t — people who are able to recruit the brain regions that are involved in self-control are better at regulating their cravings.”
To improve an individual’s self-control, Berkman said he and his colleagues use training games to hone in on a person’s self-control function in their brain, which may ultimately help them in the real world to stop smoking.
Berkman said the best way to effectively measure how much people are smoking is to gather data frequently throughout the day, since many people tend to lose track of the amount of cigarettes they smoke and provide inaccurate numbers if asked at a later time.
“People are actually pretty bad at remembering how much they’ve smoked,” Berkman said. “Even if you ask them at the end of the day how many cigarettes they’ve had, they’ll give you an estimation based on fairly even numbers even though that’s usually not accurate.”
To combat these impulses, Berkman helped create a self-regulatory method that used short messaging service text messages as a cheap-yet-accurate gauge of smoking behaviors.
“We don’t have to buy any equipment and they don’t have to buy any equipment,” Berkman said. “Most people have cell phones and many have unlimited text messaging plans, so it won’t cost people more than they already pay to send out a few text messages a day.”
Although personal digital assistants (PDAs) have been traditionally used to conduct research on cigarette smoking, Berkman said such devices are cumbersome because people would often lose them, which would result in the loss of test data. In addition, Berkman said text messages as a self-regulatory method may not just be confined to cigarettes but could also be applied broadly to other sorts of addictions, such as alcohol, methamphetamines and even exercising.
Falk said such devices are also relatively costly, since palmtop devices typically used for ecological momentary assessment can cost more than $300 each, while 86 percent of U.S. residents already have cell phones and 91 percent of those are SMS-enabled.
“Just about everyone is carrying around their cell phones,” Berkman said, “which is something that is much more powerful than just a PDA, since it can be used to assess emotions, behaviors and cognition very quickly. It’s something that people know how to use very intuitively and carry around with them all the time.”
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Quitting smoking, one text message at a time
Daily Emerald
March 27, 2011
Aaron Marineau
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