Read this article on smoking and the brain: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marina-picciotto/smoking-in-movies-think-smoking-looks_b_810561.html
Summarize the article. What are your thoughts on this piece? What is most interesting to you? Choose one aspect of the article that you want to learn more about and find out some more information about that. What did you learn? How does your understanding of concepts from chapter 3 help you understand this article? What does all this information teach you about the motivation to quit smoking?
Provide a list of proper M&E terms that you used in your blog post.
This article supports the idea that watching people smoke in movies has a negative effect on ex-smokers and makes then more likely to start smoking again. Often times when people stop smoking it is motivated for health purposes and which the source of the motivation is value. People value their health and want to live longer healthier lives. However, this articles is saying that kids and ex-smokers are likely to smoke because watching people smoke on television looks cool and encourages smoking.
I was not surprised by this article, I have read before that smoking on television encourages people to smoke. Addiction is an interesting kind of motivation and is extremely hard to break even with extreme motivation to quit smoking. Because smoking is an addictive behavior, there is usually a physiological need for nicotine once addicted to it. So trying to quit smoking takes extreme internal motivation to defeat the physiological need of the body.
I found the argument to keep smoking out of the movies the most interesting in this article. I found it very interesting that people want to smoke after simply seeing the others smoking. I don't think that the CDC will ever have enough information to pass any kind of law against smoking in movies. It's an invasion of freedom for movie directors and writers.
Because I found this argument so interesting, I chose to look up some information about kids and smoking after watching it on television. I was surprised to find a statistic that "Half of all kids who start smoking do so because they saw it in movies. Movie smoking is even more effective than cigarette ads with teens. (http://www.screensmart.ca/screens_health) " I can understand the argument, but I am shocked at that number.
Chapter 3 helps me understand this article because smoking is an addictive habit that comes from chemicals releasing in the brain to cause the addiction to nicotine. Nicotine is a psychostimulant, which makes the release of dopamine more powerful. When seeing someone else smoke, your brain releases dopamine telling you that smoking is pleasurable. This release of dopamine then motivates you to smoke, which is a form of self-administration to stimulate pleasure.
All of this information tell us that smoking is an incredibly difficult things to quit and it takes strong will power and detoxification to successfully quit. Also, even after quitting, it is important to have strong will power and and change in brain function to not see smoking as encouraging.
Terms: motivation, source of motivation, value, addiction, addictive behavior, internal motivation, physiological needs, chemicals, psychostimulant, dopamine, pleasurable, self-administration, stimulate,
Through research, this article supports the facts that smoking is bad for you. The article digs deeper than the facts that are known by most now. It was also stated that a smoker or a non-smoker seeing it on TV or in movies could reinforce smoking. For non-smokers it may look enticing because it’s “cool”. For ex-smokers and current smokers it can be for a whole other reason. It has been found that the pure motion of grabbing a cigarette and the process of lighting and taking a drag from it can cause a relapse (just by seeing it!). The article is stating that it may not only be the addictive substance of nicotine, but the learned repetitive process of smoking that can cause a deep addiction.
The idea of smoking being such a complex and deep-rooted addiction is what seems most interesting to me, in this article. It doesn’t seem as though much of it is understood, except for the nicotine addiction. I think that this area of the article alone would be something that I would like to know much more about. I think that many people think that being rid of cigarettes would rid the problem, but I do believe that it goes deeper than that.
While reading chapter three, it discussed how individuals are motivated when it comes to addiction. Nicotine creates a hypersensitivity to dopamine stimulation. The dopamine creates the “good feelings” which makes the smoker want to do it more- to be able to reach the state that they did when they last smoked. Reeve states that through new technology and treatment, they have been able to take the “liking” out of smoking (from the sensitivity of the dopamine) but the “wanting” aspect of the addiction is still in place.
Another section of chapter three went through the three principles of becoming motivated within the brain. The process helps me understand more how a smoker would be motivated to smoke. There would be an external event, which could be any stressful event. Cortisol, a stress hormone would circulate, and then stimulate a certain area of the brain that in return would motivate the individual to smoke.
This information from our textbook along with the article shows to me how difficult it truly is to quit smoking. One would need alternative sources of a dopamine release, as well as an alternative to change their routine of smoking. There is more than goes into smoking than a simple addiction to nicotine.
Terms: hypersensitivity, wanting, liking, three principles of motivation, cortisol
In addition to peer pressure, withdrawl, and additional stress, research has recently indicated another factor contributing to relapse in remittent smokers. According to an article by Ph.D. Marina Picciotto, movies showing people smoking may contribute to smoking behaviors in viewers by activating areas in the brain which influence the physical movements of smokers. This may influence ex-smokers to pick up a cigarette by changing their brain activity, and thus eliminating their willpower to quit. Statistics show that although about half of U.S. smokers try to quit each year, only a small minority of them succeed. Although there are some strategies to help smokers quit (such as CBT, help-lines, and nicotine replacements), relapse continues to disrupt the majority of smokers’ attempts to quit. However, this new information may be useful to understand more about smokers unconscious drives to smoke and provide a solution to relapse.
This article efficiently summarized the study’s results and explained their significance. It’s interesting that many people use movies to distract themselves from reality, but the movies they’re watching may actually counteract that goal by inducing unconscious desires. After reading chapter three; however, it made sense that an external stimulus could activate an area of the brain and induce a particular motivation or emotion. The article clearly demonstrated the brain structure, biochemical, and day-to-day event principles using a real life example. In this case, the event of watching someone smoke in a movie triggered a hormone or neurotransmitter (possibly dopamine for reward or cortisol for stress), which stimulated particular brain areas (including the left prefrontal cortex and possibly the structures in the dopamine pathway) to increase an approach behavior to smoke. This example helped me better learn the real world application these three principles and how research may be conducted with them. It would be interesting to learn about other seemingly unrelated activities that prime people to do something (such as smoke). In conclusion, the article demonstrated the struggle smokers have with quitting. Their motivation to quit smoking is constantly challenged by many sources lasting a long time after they decide to quit. Furthermore, their motivation may be decreased or changed from brain activity resulting from external stimuli, illustrating the powerful effect physiological functions have on our motivations.
Terms: brain structure principle, biochemical principle, day-to-day events principle, dopamine, cortisol, left prefrontal cortex, hormone, neurotransmitter
This article gives a new perspective on smoking research. The author, Marina Picciotto PhD, explains how nearly everyone knows the negative effects of smoking, yet millions of people chose to continue engaging in the activity. According to the article 20% of people in the American adult population are smokers. Smoker’s behavior can be a result of a learned habit. Simply executing the action of taking the cigarette to one’s mouth can be motivating. Seeing the action done on television or in movies can trigger a relapse for someone who has quit, and can put the smoker back into action. Different therapies are available for smokers who wish to quit such as, helpline, cognitive behavioral therapy and nicotine replacement therapies (medicines or the patch). The author states that the physical act of smoking and the addictive components of cigarettes is enough to change brain activity that makes it difficult for smokers to quit and stick with it.
The article reiterates information we’ve heard time and time again, along with some new discoveries. I was especially interested to hear how easy it is for smokers to relapse. I wouldn’t think twice about seeing an actor smoking on television, but for someone who use to smoke it could be very detrimental to their progress and success. I would like to find out more information on what type of brain activity changes to make it hard to be successful when trying to quit smoking. Is the change reversible? How long does a person have to be a smoker until the change occurs? Is the change damaging to other aspects of the individuals health and well-being? Discovering information like this could be beneficial to those professionals who work with clients trying to break the addiction.
The act of smoking gives pleasure to people. Smoking releases dopamine throughout the brain. By smoking individuals self-administer a release of dopamine. Dopamine travels to the prefrontal cortex that involves decision making and learning about response and outcomes. Just thinking of smoking creates a positive outcome (feeling) for a smoker therefore making the action harder to resist. The dopamine release also creates goal-directed approach behavior. As stated in the article, a smoker will be more likely to relapse when they see someone smoking on television. The smoker has already “learned” that the event of smoking can be linked to pleasure. The individual will see the action and will then treat smoking as a goal they need to attain. Not smoking can create stress, irritability and anxiety by release of cortisol from the adrenal gland.
Terms: dopamine, prefrontal cortex, self-administration, goal-directed approach behavior, cortisol
This article discussed a study on why the brain interprets smoking in movies as cool. When a person is watching actors smoke in movies, it activates areas of the brain which control body movement. People who are trying to quit smoking are more likely to relapse because of this stimulation of the brain. It can be activated, making them want to reach for a cigarette, all because they saw it in the movies. Smoking tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in most countries and people know that it's addictive, yet they still do it. Behavioral therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy, nicotine replacement therapies (patch) or medicines may help smokers put down the cigarettes for good, but ultimately the majority of ex-smokers relapse within a year of quitting. A new study sheds some light on possible answers on why relapse occurs repeatedly. It may have to do with our bodies response to the cigarette smoke AND the physical act of smoking that changes the brain's activity. It can drive a person to smoke even though they want to quit.
This article definitely sparked my interest because I didn't really realize how the brain adapts and changes after tobacco use. It surprised me of the 50% who try to quit smoking each year only 5% actually succeed. I guess I was always one of those who thought that if you wanted it bad enough you could stop. Maybe not cold turkey, but gradually. Now I understand it goes beyond that, the brain changes and recognizes how pleasurable smoking is. A person is motivated to smoke because of brain stimulation even though they don't want to pick up a cigarette. I wanted to look more into how dopamine and smoking cessation relate to one another. I found that dopamine levels increase when a person smokes because it is pleasurable to them. When they quit, their dopamine levels aren't as high and they aren't being rewarded for quitting. Prolonged smoking results in addiction because it rewards the brain and body with happiness or well being. When a person see's that actor on TV smoking, the brain associates that with happiness and reward, releasing dopamine, but only enough to motivate them to smoke once more.
My understanding of chapter 3 was further solidified by this article because I actually understand how a person is motivated to smoke even though they want to quit. This chapter discussed the 3 principles of motivation and each principle can be applied to this article. Biochemical agents stimulate specific brain structure, for example neurotransmitters (such as dopamine pathways) or hormones (possibly cortisol) can stimulate certain glands or nerve fibers which cause a motivation. Seeing a person smoke on TV reminds them of the pleasurable experience stimulating the dopamine and driving them to relapse. This also fits with the 3rd principle of motivation: day-to-day events stir biochemical agents into action. Specific smells or actions may trigger the brain areas to activate, again, releasing chemicals. It wouldn't seem like something as simple as an actor smoking could affect the brain so much, but it does and it really weakens a person's ability to quit. They don't really have control over it at that point because their brain activity has physically changed because of tobacco use. Motivation can be beyond your "conscious" reach at this point because your brain structure and function has been altered. It is an extremely different way to think about it but it helps me grasp why relapse does occur so frequently.
TERMS: biochemical agents principle, neurotransmitters, dopamine, hormones, cortisol, day-to-day events principle
In the article by the Huffington Post, Smoking in Movies: Why Your Brain Thinks It’s Cool. It discusses how nicotine isn’t the only think that makes people want to smoke. Actors and actresses in movies make smoking look easy and cool. They casually pick up the cigarette making it seem easy and effortless to those watching. This makes it seem easier and not a large threat to the audience. Watching people do such things can make ex-smokers start to smoke again by activating certain brain areas linked to physical habits of smoking (the simple action of bringing a cigarette to the mouth).
I liked this article and found it very interesting. I have always paid a larger interest in smoking and its effects on people because my grandfather died from lung cancer, so smoking always elicits emotions from me. Some of the things I found most interesting was the fact that watching people smoke can make other people want to smoke because it connects with the brain, linking it to physical habits. I also found it extremely interesting that deaths attributed to smoking are larger than combined deaths of AIDS, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined! That has to be one heck of a large number to do that!
A part of the article that made me want to learn more was nicotine replacement patches. I wanted to find out if they are bad for your health because they still give a person nicotine without smoking. After researching I found that they are actually really good for smokers trying to quit and there are even other studies coming out that they can help with other mental health issues. A person cannot be smoking while using the patch because it could cause major health problems. Studies have also shown that using the patch has doubled the success rate of smokers quitting compared to placebo tests. I couldn’t find much information on how long people abstain from smoking after the patch but it seems to be a great technique for quitting the bad habit.
The understanding from chapter three helped me connect with this article because it made me see how much the brain is involved. Dopamine levels are affected by smoking and those are largely determined in the brain. Our motivation has to start in the brain and then we have to make a conscious effort to move forward with our goal. The addiction to smoking is very hard to overcome and having movies portraying addictive behavior makes it hard for people to stay away from smoking.
The motivation to quit smoking is a complex process that I will probably never understand fully. But at least now I have a good idea of how the brain works with our bodies and our behaviors. I hope that I can stay away from addictive behaviors such as smoking so I won’t have to go through the trouble of trying to quit such a bad habit.
Terms: dopamine, motivation, addiction, addictive behavior
This article covered a few aspects of smoking and addiction. The article started out talking about smoking in movies can lead former smokers and kids to resume or start smoking because for the physical action and the cool-ness of smoking. Then the article talked about how smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths and the many complications from smoking. The article finishes with how many smokers try to quit but end of going back and points out how little we know about how to help those people. It also mentions how the brain plays a role in smoking.
I like this peace, i wish it would have been a longer article. I felt like it jumped around a bit and I felt like the author had more to say and I would have liked to read some more about what she had to say.
I didn't know that smoking kept wounds from healing. I know that I just got my wisdom teeth out 3 weeks ago and I was told not to smoke because I could dislodge the blood clot but I assumed it was just the behavior of sucking. i learned that smoking makes blood vessels to become smaller then they have a harder time carrying oxygen and healing nutrients to the wound site. This makes healing a much longer process. Smoking also reduces the oxygen in your blood cells which can cause problems with surgical operations and healing.
I learned that simply the behavior of watching someone smoke on television or a movie can trigger the brain receptors for the former smokers.
How does your understanding of concepts from chapter 3 help you understand this article?
I know that smoking causes dopamine to be released in the brain causing a pleasurable feeling and reduces anxiety and this related to chapter three. So it makes sense that a person who sees someone smoking would maybe remember that pleasurable feeling and thus the urge to smoke again could be present. The addiction is more about the neurotransmitter release than the actually smoking behavior.
This teaches me that to quit smoking is a much harder task then I originally thought. I though it was all about the learned muscle memory and habit and yes the nicotine. I had no idea that simply seeing a smoker could cause a reaction in a former smoker. This tells me we need more research into the motivation and quitting of smoking and to provide more help for those on the path to stopping.
Terms: Behaviors, Dopamine, Neurotransmitters, Motivations, Brain, Receptors.
I thought this article was pretty interesting. Once again, another factor comes into play when it comes to smoking. Not only is there peer pressure, and stress, this article now states that smoking in movies can really impact an individual and activate the brain to want to smoke. Majority of movies you see today, usually PG-13+ have some type of smoking in it, either it being cigarettes or some other type of drug. Look at the Hangover 2, a monkey is even smoking! This is really unfortunate for people who have been trying to quit smoking, or have quit smoking for some time now. There are already so many reasons people relapse, and now just sitting in front of the TV (stress free) can cause you to pick up a cig. The article then states some statistics about smoking. Honestly, I thought it was surprising to know that only 20% of US adults smoke, sadly I thought it would be more. Another crazy fact was that out of the 50% that try to quit, only 5% of them actually succeed. Also, 50% of those people who do succeed in quitting relapse within the next year.
I think this article is interesting in the fact that there are so many factors that contribute to smoking, and people relapsing. It’s hard to stop when you have environmental and biological factors in your way. The most interesting part of the article for me was the statistics part. Even though 20% is large, I thought the statistic would be larger. Also, the other most interesting part is the main topic of the article; how movies can activate the brain so much to make you actually start smoking. It’s crazy to me how much biology plays a role.
One topic that I wanted to look more in depth at was the fact that watching people smoking in movies can change your brain activity. So I decided to look up some more information on the web. It was interesting finding articles that say the same thing, and articles absolutely against it. There were many articles and studies that I looked over that agree with this theory, such as one called the ‘Psychology of Smoking.’ These researchers found the same thing and actually did studies on people. Yet, it was also very interesting to go to some blogging websites that ‘bashed’ this theory saying that there is nothing biological about it. Many of these blogs were actually funny to read, and honestly many of these people seemed very uneducated (not offense!). This extended research honestly made me realize not to trust everything you see on the internet, as well as there are so many factors that lead to smoking. I think this topic is rather fascinating.
This connects to chapter three in a couple of different ways. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter is released into the brain, and this can be caused by an individual smoking. This then sends pleasurable feelings throughout the body, and that can ultimately reduce the stress and anxiety someone is feeling. I do not think the addiction is someone picking up a cigarette and smoking it, I believe it is more related to the neurotransmitters that are being released, which is explained in the chapter. Then, when watching a person in a movie showing addictive behavior makes it even harder to quit the behavior of smoking, and if even you do quit, the addiction may come back.
This article and chapter has shown that quitting smoking is not as easy as people think, or at least what I thought. It is way more biological, and sometimes you cannot help the hormones and neurotransmitters being released. Also, once you have actually quit smoking, it is very hard not to relapse, I guess especially if you like to watch movies that are PG-13¬+. Just like what we talked about in class today; you will need a lot of will power!!
Terms: Neurotransmitter, Dopamine, Addictive Behavior, Brain, Addiction, Hormones
What this article talks about is that watching movies where smoking is involved activates the brain and makes you so that you have similar movements that smokers do. They talk about how these movements can cause someone to start smoking or relaspe. The article then talks about people have been trying to stop movies from showing smoking. They believe that these scenes that involve smoking makes the person watching it to want to smoke. The reason is that this makes the actor cool because he is smoking. It then goes into talking about some statistics about smoking and it wonders why so many people smoke.
What I thought when reading this was that I can understand this. There are many subliminal messages in commercials and in movies so I can understand why this would occur. This occurs in television with commercials because when you see a product on T.V. it sends a message to your brain that tells you that you want it. This is very similar to smoking in movies. Kids look up to these actors in movies as role models and when they see them smoking, they want to smoke. The most interesting thing that I found in the article was the statistic that 50% try to quit smoking each year but only 5% succeed. I was surprised by the high number that want to quit every year and by the low number that actually do. I would have thought more than 5% of the people who want to quit actually do.
The part I found most interesting was the part that talked about how viewing someone smoking in a movie can lead someone to smoke. I was interested to find that a lot of movies have smoking in them. In one website I found that over the last 15 years, Marlboro has been featured in 74 of the highest grossing movies. I also found out that TV advertising of cigarettes were banned and the advertisers turned to movies instead.
In Chapter 3, there were a couple of things that could be related to this article. One of those things is that dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter, is released when someone smokes. Dopamine goes into the body and produces good feelings in someone. The article then talked about addiction, which goes with this article very good because the whole article talks about smoking and how it is addicting. Nicotine is obviously in tobacco which makes it a psychostimulant. What all this tells me about the motivation to stop smoking is that it is very hard to do because even though it is bad for you, it can make you feel very good. The dopamine release makes you feel very good. A person doesn't want to stop doing something that makes them feel good. Because of this, it is hard to stop smoking.
Terms: Neurotransmitter, Addiction, Psychostimulant, Dopamine, Motivation
This article opens the publics eyes to another way that smoking can hook new kids and to hinder people's success in quitting. This article talks about when former smokers watch movies with smoking movements in them, it can cause their brain to activate the part that had them addicted and can cause them to go back to smoking. This article also said that kids who watch movies with smoking can think its cool and pick up the bad habit as well.
The most interesting part of this article to me was the simple fact that kids after all of their education on why smoking is bad and how it harms your body, still start based on movie stars. This would go back to the modeling principle that while watching someone do a behavior it intrigues others to do it as well. It just fascinated me to see that kids are still very much influenced by the movies. I understand how it would be hard for a former smoker to watch smoking movements due to the additive section in the brain.
I wanted to look more depth into smokers who attempt to quit and only 5% actually do quit. When I searched the web I found that the success rates are quite low. I did find that behavioral therapies can increase your chance of success while taking some type of medication (patch, nicotine gum etc. I was surprised to see how low the success rates really are because I thought they were at least in the thirty percentile range. However on many of the sites I found it ranged from 4-7% success rates.
This article taught me that a simple movement can cause people mainly kids to start new behavior or for old addicts, to pick up the cigarette again. I also learned how low the success rates are, and that if movies did not have these simple actions that affect the brain maybe it would be higher.
Chapter 3 helped me understand that when a person smokes it realeases the neurotransmitter dopamine for a feel good pleasurable response. The brain controls a person's behavior by day-to-day actions and this stimulates the biochemical agents which craves nicotine. The need for dopamine is the wanting in the brain. The brain is motivated by the action they see and it begins to crave that nicotine to release the dopamine.
This article helped me understand motivation better by seeing an exmple of day-to-day actions stimulating a biochemical agent. In this case, a former smoker sees the action of smoking and htis stimulates that part of the brain that craves nicotine to release dopamine. This article also shows how really hard it is to quit and not to start back up. This is where willpower comes into play. Smoking is not an easy thing to quit, and by seeing it in movies or around you can make it even harder.
Terms: Brain, stimulate, motivation, neurotransmitter, dopamine, biochemical agents, wanting
This article over smoking by Picciotta starts off by asking why people still conduct research on smoking because willpower should be enough to help someone quit. She answers this with focusing on smoking in movies and how stating that seeing the physical act of going for a cigarette and watching someone else smoke one, especially in movies where it is suppose to be viewed as ‘cool’, can actually trigger something in our brains causing ex-smokers to want to reach for a pack. A few important associations have argued to end smoking in movies to the influence of it does not start with kids smoking as well. Picciotta goes on to give certain death facts about smoking as well as how it slows the healing processes of wounds and surgeries. She also states some facts about how addicting cigarettes are by stating percentages of people trying to quit, and how many actually succeed and relapse. The article ends with simply putting together that willpower is not enough for people to quit, especially with watching smoking in movies causing brain activity to be triggered to want a cigarette or two.
I think this article has a good, clear argument as to why to continue research on smoking habits and if taking smoking out of movies can help save ex-smokers or kids from lighting a cigarette then more should be done to stop this. I thought it was interesting that smoking in movies actually does trigger brain activity to crave a cigarette, for after watching movies containing smoking I usually will have one myself. I want to learn more about how smoking tobacco can slow a healing wound’s process as well as not helping the skin during surgeries, which I was not fully aware of before, and what other harm cigarettes can do to the body besides just blackening the lungs. I think having further knowledge about the damage of cigarettes will cause me not to crave one as much after watching a tobacco smoking movie. I learned that when I do crave a cigarette while watching someone else smoke that there is something going on in my brain causing that craving to occur. The main concept from chapter 3 is that the brain has a huge influence on motivation, which is proven here as to why that craving for a cigarette occurs and motivates someone to smoke. Also, the concept of Day-to-Day events Stir Biochemical Agents into Action states that our brain reacts to the outside environment by triggering different chemicals that shape our motivation and emotion states, such as watching smoking in a movie motivating us to smoke. The Orbitofrontal Cortex helps us determine what choices to make in our daily lives which can help motivate us to be fight the cravings of smoking, such as chewing gum instead or switching tasks to ‘get it off your mind’.
The article discussed how smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and many of addicted smokers try to quit each year. It pointed out a new study that found that watching someone in a movie smoke activated the areas in the participants’ brains that move their body to take a puff of a cigarette. The article also addressed the question of, “Why are we still studying smoking?” They pointed out that we need to invest in helping the smokers quit when the time comes that they want to. Half of addicted smokers try to quit each year, and less than 5% succeed in quitting. Even with the help of programs for people trying to kick the habit, the success rate is less than 50%. I found it really interesting that organizations are trying to stop movies from showing a person smoking. I kind of even think that smoking in movies is necessary in some cases. Maybe it is stereotypical, but I cannot picture a mob boss in a movie that isn’t surrounded by a cloud of smoke. I looked more into this topic and learned that the year 2005 had the most smoking in movies. Since that year, the amount of smoking in movies has actually been cut in half. The Center for Disease Control wants any movie that shows smoking to be automatically rated R. As of 2007, the Motion Picture Association of America has included the amount of smoking in a movie as a factor in ratings.
The study that shows how viewing a smoker in a movie can activate the brain of an ex-smoker in the areas that cause them to move their hand to take a drag is a perfect example of the third principle of brain-based motivational processes. The third principle states that daily events cause neurotransmitters and hormones to be released into the body. This stimulates an approach-oriented structure like the hypothalamus, medial forebrain bundle, or orbitofrontal cortex. This would affect how a person quits smoking. They do not have control over whether a certain part of their brain is stimulated or not. They just have to try to control what they are exposed to so that they can avoid the release of the neurotransmitter or hormone that causes their cravings. This could be especially hard for people in the cities. From my experience, there seems to be many more people outside smoking on the sidewalk in big cities than there are in smaller towns. Walking through the cloud of smoke or even seeing a person on the street take a drag could make a person trying to quit relapse.
Terms: Brain-based motivational processes, neurotransmitter, hormone, approach-oriented structure, hypothalamus, medial forebrain bundle, orbitofrontal cortex.
I found this article to be very interesting. It points out a lot of information about smoking and how people perceive it. (Mostly smokers)I had no idea that smokers would relapse from watching a movie with smoking in it. To me that's something I've never even thought about. I am not a smoker so it doesn't bother me to see smoking in movies. Something in the brain must trigger and set something off that makes gives them a nicotine craving. It makes perfect sense as to why that would happen though. I think that if we have valid information on smoking in movies and the relapse in smokers then we need to limit the amount of smoking done in movies. Not only is it bad for former smokers but like the article stated, kids think it's cool so they're going to try it. The amounts of deaths from smoking just baffles me. That's a statistic. People who smoke don't realize that they have a good chance of being part of that statistic if they keep smoking. I realize that nicotine is addictive and it's hard to stop but everyone's life is worth all the hard work and pain to quit smoking. I think deep down they have to find the motivation to quit before it takes their life. Also, we can't make anyone quit. They will have to WANT to quit smoking.
My thoughts on this piece is thank goodness I am not a smoker! I know many people who smoke and who have quit successfully, but said it was the hardest thing they've ever had to do. They also said if they knew they were going to die tomorrow they would start smoking again. The most interesting part to me was that in 1994 seven CEO'S actually testified and said that nicotine was not addictive? I hope they made themselves look like fools after doing that. The part of the article that I wanted to look forward into was how smoking could affect the healing process after surgery. I did not know that smoking affected healing at all. This was all new information to me. So I found that if you stopped smoking prior to surgery you had a much smaller chance of complications after surgery. Also, studies showed that people who stopped smoking before surgery were released up to two days before patients who didn't stop smoking. I think chapter three has definitely helped me understand this article. Mostly, because I know what the parts of the brain controls and how they work. It's nice to have some background information about the brain. This article taught me about how everybody's knows the risks involved with smoking and what it does to your body. It's up to you to find the motivation to quit. After all the statistics we're found out about over the years if that doesn't give you enough motivation to try and quit or reduce your amount then you definitely have to dig deep within yourself and try to find some kind of other motivation.
TERMS: Motivation, Want, Brain, Additive
This article was about how seeing someone in a movie or tv show smoking activates cues in the brain which makes us more likely to smoke. I was a little on the fence about this because I believed that smoking was caused by our environment and peer pressure. It stated in the article that the argument that most people have is that actors make smoking look cool which would lead kids to start, which is what I thought. I didn’t think that seeing someone light up a cigarette in a movie could possibly activate some areas of our brain that in turn make us want a cigarette so I decided to look further into this subject.
In a study focused on this particular topic, it was found that there are in fact biological activations when introduced to smoking cues. The study said how the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and striatum are activated when introduced to a smoking cue. These particular areas of the brain are responsible for attention, emotion, and motivation. This of course was done with an fMRI, which picks up changing brain states. So according to this article and the study that I found, our brain activates certain regions when it sees someone light a cigarette or take a drag.
This relates to the information presented in chapter 3 because it relates to certain areas of the brain and how they affect motivation. Their effect on emotion can be either good or bad but it goes to show that our brain plays a huge role in our motivational state. When trying to quit smoking, the brain is telling you to light a cigarette when you see someone smoking, which in turn makes it hard to keep motivated to quit.
Prefrontal cortex, amygdala, striatum, fMRI, motivation
Throughout reading this article, it is stated that people that quit smoking is harder than just wanting to quit and that you can get an urge to continue or start back smoking from watching television and movies and seeing people smoking in them. I thought that it was very interesting that 50% of smokers tried to quit and only 5% were successful, that to me just shows that it has to be more than just a want to quit smoking.
I thought that it was interesting that more deaths each year were caused by smoking than by AIDS, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined. So, I decided to look into it further and see the numbers: AIDS: 17,000, illegal drugs: 17,000, alcohol use: 85,000, motor vehicle injuries: 17,000, suicides: 34,000, & murders: 18,361. The total 175,661 deaths to 443,000, that total is shocking when you look at the six areas compared to the one.
Smokers develop an addiction to nicotine; they develop a hypersensitivity to it. While they are smoking dopamine to the nicotine and it gives them that “good feeling” that smoking gives them and becomes so addictive. So when they try to stop, their addiction and wanting to smoke, outweighs their liking of smoking, which means, they don’t like to smoke anymore and are trying not to, but their want and need of the nicotine, outweighs them not liking it and results in smokers going back to smoking.
Terms used: want, like, dopamine, addiction, hypersensitivity
443,000 deaths per year seems like a reasonable relatively high number of lost loved ones to motivate people to use any means necessary to quit smoking. Even many people who may be uneducated about the subjects of nicotine, willpower, dopamine, addiction, etc understand that smoking is an unhealthy act to incorporate into daily living. There are hundreds of ways to help people quit and thousands of websites, books, and people of good authority telling the public that smoking will cause terrible outcomes for health and a very real possibility of death.
Dr. Marina Picciotto decided to delve into a bit of research that begged the question, "Does smoking in mainstream cinema boost people to start or resume smoking?" Her research concluded that when people observe movies where actors are smoking it does something to the human brain that deactivates much of the stored willpower and smoking happens almost unconsciously. The brain center for addictive habits is attacked and Dr. Picciotto claims it is being overthrown. What really caught my attention was the denial, of seven different tobacco companies, that smoking is an addictive habit. I feel like the number of deaths speak for themselves. I could hardly believe that 20% of the U.S. population is trying to kill themselves through smoking. This high number also made me want to look further into how other countries are trying to manage rampant smoking numbers. On the same website, the huffingtonpost.com, China is trying very hard to ban screenwriters and directors from using scenes depicting smoking unless it is necessary for artistic expression or to develop a character. By no means is it allowed that anyone under 18 can smoke in films. This new set of doctrines are purposed to cut down on the mortality rate that China faces due to smoking. Nearly 3 million people in the country smoke and about 30% or close to 1 million people die each year from this so-called nonaddictive habit. These numbers are out there and countries like China and the U.S. are trying to eliminate the idea of even beginning to smoke from the minds of young people and trying to relinquish those who already started. It has to be a physiological response that is aiding the action of smoking to avoid all of these powerful statistics. Brain structures like the Medial Forebrain Bundle, Septal Area, Nucleus Accumbens are all activated during smoking and structures like the Medial Prefrontal Cerebral Cortex and the Right Prefrontal Cerebral Cortex are disabled when it comes to ideas of smoking e.g. during movies. To me this says that quitting smoking is about as easy as going on a diet. Tons of people have tried and tons of people are failing to maintain their new lifestyles and avoiding the pitfalls of failure like viewing others engaging in destructive behaviors.
Terms Used: Motivate, addiction, willpower, dopamine, Medial Forebrain Bundle, Septal Area, Nucleus Accumbens, Medial Prefrontal Cerebral Cortex and the Right Prefrontal Cerebral Cortex, destructive behavior.
This article hits home with me due to a large majority of my family being smokers. A lot of this article is review, we all know how addictive and dangerous smoking is. The author, Marina Picciotto, illustrates over and over how harmful smoking is and really follows it all up with treatment techniques.
Immediately starting off in this article Marina points out how smoking is a process that requires physical movement. Due to this, people who are trying to quit smoking tend to be greatly influenced by just seeing someone perform this action. This still holds true when concerned with watching movies. It turns out that not only smelling but seeing cigarettes being used is strongly correlated with motivating someone to return to smoking. Associations such as The American Lung Association have tried to ban smoking in movies throughout the past because of the belief that they make smoking appear to be "cool". New thought promotes that this may also send recent quiters back to smoking. Marina continues to point out that smoking is the leading cause of death in most countries, she then describes multiple different ways to try and quit smoking. After mentioning coping methods, she describes how the CEO's of multiple popular tobacco companies deny to agree that nicotine is addictive despite numerous scientific studies.
I'm not sure what to think about this article. I think its great yeah, however, a lot of this is information already known to most people. To defend the article though, it was wrote over a year ago which may have made it appropriate for the time. I agree that current advancements to help smokers quit are not where they should be nor are current ones adequate. I do think though that we have came a long way in this area. Smokers are becoming more and more limited to areas where they can smoke. Examples, no smoking on campus, in bars, etc.. Not only that but education regarding smoking's harmful effects are broadcasted in schools, billboards, and hospitals. I, myself, despise smoking but I understand how hard it is for people to kick the habit out of their lives. I definitely think that smoking is still a major issue but I also believe that we have made a lot of progress in the right direction and that it will only get better in the years to come.
Fortunately, I was able to learn something new in this article that was really interesting to me. I had no idea whatsoever that smoking causes wounds to heal poorly. Smoking actually is a major player in why fractures and surgeries don't heal correctly according to Picciotto. This is actually something that I would love to know more about. After doing some research I found out that the nicotine in tobacco reduces the effectiveness of good blood flow throughout the body, which simply means that wounds are not able to receive as much blood as normal. Nicotine seems to be bad news all around because it also contributes to platelet adhesiveness, increasing the chances of a blood clot forming.
Chapter 3 of our textbook helped me realize that there are strong psychological factors going on in the minds of previous/current smokers that motivate them to smoke. Addiction causes brain structures to act differently. Not only that but the dopamine release smokers get while smoking promotes them to continue smoking in the future. Another important concept to take from this is "Monkey see, monkey do". Humans watch others and seeing others do something makes them want to do it (most of the time). We want to look "cool" right? Structures of the brain are influenced dramatically by drugs, especially nicotine. Combining this concept of seeing and smelling an old bad habit makes it very daunting to successfully quit.
I find all this information to be very discouraging to smokers. It seems that no matter how strong of a will they possess many other subconscious psychological factors will always work against them, even after they have quit for a long period of time.
Terms: Addictive/Addiction, Motivation/Motivate, Wanting, Habit, Dopamine
This article explains how smoking is addictive because of nicotine. An addiction is a practice that is habit-forming psychologically or physically. Nicotine is a substance found in tobacco. Simple things trigger the brain areas linked to addiction, causing a smoker or ex smoker to have a hard time resisting to light up. For example, a movie character starts smoking.
A better way to quit and not re lap is desperately in need to be discovered. Telephone help lines, nicotine patches, and medication to decrease responses in the brain to cigarettes are not guaranteed to resist an urge to smoke. Only 5% of people succeed and 50% re laps.
I think the piece breaks down how much simple things can trigger an unwanted response. It's not all will power, that makes a smoker become an ex smoker. The smoker has to actually want to quit and try to quit; which takes will power. Will power is the control of impulses and actions. However, they need to understand it is hard work and must be fully committed to quit.
I found it interesting that smoking affects the injury healing process. Smoking prevents wounds from fully healing and causes a negative outcome for surgeries or fractures. I feel this lowers the chance of a long healthy life even more. So, why does this not give more will power or desire to quit? I didn't know about this whole healing prevention before this article. Learning this drives me to tell every smoker about it.
Chapter three explained the brain areas that deal with motives. This helped with the understanding of how people can't control everything. However, the person does need the motive to actually want to quit in order for this to start.
Terms used: addiction, nicotine, will power, motives.
The article “Smoking in Movies: Why Your Brain Thinks It’s Cool” discusses the issue of smoking and how the habit/addiction is linked to certain brain activities. When a person is smoking in a movie and the audience watches the action of smoking, there is a certain area of the brain that is stimulated. This could contribute to the reason why an ex-smoker would reach for a pack of cigarettes. The article mentions a lot of things that are well known today. Such as, the nicotine in cigarettes is addictive, it is the leading cause of preventable death and very few people are successful at quitting for good.
I think this article is interesting because cigarette and tobacco advertisements are banned from most magazines, newspapers, and television commercials, yet it is still commonly used among individuals. Everyone knows how bad it is, it’s expensive, and there are no positive health effects. The nicotine is addictive enough to get people hooked and despite all the negative outcomes to tobacco use, people continue to use the substance. I don’t think banning cigarette use from movies is going to make any sort of impact on tobacco use. If kids watch a movie and think smoking is cool, they are going to try it. If they watch a movie on drinking alcohol and think it looks cool, they are going to try it. The list could go on and on. Basically, if tobacco use is as popular as it is, without all of the glorification, it is going to continue to be popular. I hope tobacco use does decrease, but I don’t think banning it from movies is going to make an impact.
After reading this article I wanted to learn more about what kind of an effect seeing a person smoking in a movie would have on a non-smoker. I found an informational website about how smoking in movies influences teenagers and young adults. If a teenager does not smoke, but has a favorite movie star that is seen repeatedly smoking in movies, they are sixteen times more likely to smoke. Another factor that would contribute to this is if the teenagers’ parents smoke or not. The website mentions a statistic that states, “Smoking in movies is the most powerful pro-tobacco influence on kids today, accounting for 44% of adolescents who start smoking, an effect even stronger than cigarette advertising.” (http://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/problem/moviessell.html)
After reading Chapter 3 I am able to better understand how harmful addiction is to the brain and body. When your brain and body and physically dependent on a substance, you can’t function unless that substance is in your body. Addiction can come in many forms such as, food, marijuana, alcohol, facebook, cocaine, sex, you name it. It is just as possible to become addicted to innocent as it is to very harmful things. When certain areas of the brain are stimulated, many things are possible.
All of the information that I have learned from reading this article, the additional website, and Chapter 3 are all concepts that I have been aware of for quite awhile. In elementary school there is the D.A.R.E. program which teaches kids to stay away from drugs, most High Schools have a “Thinking Before Drinking” type programs that educates teenagers about the effects that alcohol has on their brain. Then, in college I have learned a lot about drug use, the brain, and the types of effects they have on each other.
TERMS: habit, addiction, brain, stimulated, health effects, positive effects, physically dependent, substance
The research which has been done on smoking admits that this habitual behavior in itself is very addictive and difficult to reverse. Due to the behavioral habits developed around smoking and the social context in the media regarding smoking both the additive aspect and social relation make it increasingly difficult for people to quit and stay smoke free. I find it very interesting that that during research it was found that people who watches movies triggers something in their brain to want to reach for a cigarette. I have heard of how it affects children and them socially thinking smoking is cool and acceptable but I did not realize the effects of the media on adults and the increase chance of relapse.
I wanted to find more information about the effects of film on people who were smokers. I found that when watching movies where people are smoking the parts of the smoker’s brain which are affected are the parts which actually controlled the movement of the hand to mouth. I also found in that the peoples whose rewards system was very active they desired a cigarette more than the other. Something not really mentioned in our article for class is people changing from the social contexts which made the person desire a cigarette more.
One of the three principles discussed in chapter three was the day-to-day events stir biochemical agents into action. When developing the habit of smoking you become in a routine where after or during certain actions or behaviors you desire/need a cigarette. We are motivated to have a cigarette because of the social setting and then specific parts of our brain are activated. Our neurotransmitters are sending messages throughout the body and brain when the physical addiction is in need and motivated to have a cigarette. After smoking the cigarette the release of dopamine occurs signifying a reward and reinforcement for the brain and body making the desire for a cigarette a need. Before people started smoking cigarette I think the exposure through media was a factor driving the want for it. Then after the initial path to addition and the want people would enter the like stage. The wanting of a cigarette and then the liking of the reward from a cigarette occurred together reinforcing the habit.
The motivation to quit smoking is very difficult because not only initially are you going to need to avoid the social activities which drove you to smoke but then attempt to change the physical addiction your body has. The liking and wanting with the release of the dopamine and reward system are very powerful aspects within our bodies.
Terms: Want and like, the day-to-day events stir biochemical agents into action, dopamine, neurotransmitters, reward and reinforcement, addiction, motivation.
The first part of the article to me was mostly a review. I have read that before that seeing people in movies do things that are addictive can be triggers for past users, not just with smoking cigarettes, but with anything. I know one thing they tell (especially early) recovering addicts not to do is watch shows like Intervention because just seeing them light up that joint or load the needle with heroin can trigger things and lead to relapse because it sparks parts of the brain that makes them have that craving feeling.
I am always shocked though when reading articles and finding out how many smokers try to quit each year and how many really do. This article said that fifty percent of ex-smokers still relapse within a year even with multiple therapies. This is an astonishing number! There has to be something else when this many people are relapsing with numerous therapies. With smoker’s bodies' combined response to the chemicals in cigarette smoke and the physical act of smoking it leads to changes in brain activity and this gives them the urge to smoke long after the wanting to quit and the other therapies. This is almost scary to me when it comes to addiction, if someone really wants to quit and goes through all of the necessary steps, gets the right help, spends a lot of money, and still cannot quit because brain activity is still giving them the urge when they see it on a movie. I wonder if it is the same response when the pull up to someone at a stop sign and the person next to them is smoking.
One thing I found interesting and wanted to find out more on in this article was how many movies still have a significant amount of smoking in them, and to know if this is something they know and because of it are decreasing. On the tobacco free kids website I found that
The amount of smoking imagery in movies has declined over time. A 2011 study found that the number of top-grossing movies with tobacco incidents (defined as ―the use or implied use of a tobacco product by an actor‖) fell from 66.6 percent in 2005 to 45.3 percent in 2010. Similarly, among youth-rated movies (G, PG, or PG-13), the number of those with tobacco incidents fell from 54.8 percent in 2005 to 30.7 percent in 2010.
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0216.pdf
I still thought that 30 percent was high for G, PG or PG-13 movies.
Smoking affects neurotransmitters in the brain and acts a lot like other addictive drugs in the release of dopamine. This is what helps smokers keep getting the “feel good” effect and motivates them to want to smoke more.
Terms Used: neurotransmitter, dopamine, motivation, addiction
The article reports on a new study that finds that when smokers watch another person smoke in the movies, areas of their brain respond in such a way that is produces a craving to smoke. It goes on to suggest a ban on smoking in movies has been advocating for some time now by groups such as The American Lung Association and the CDC. The article concludes with a few statistics on smoking and its detrimental effects on health and states that while most people general understand that smoking is bad for you, we still do not know all of the reasons why it is so difficult to quit.
It is interesting that this study found through fMRI that brain areas associated with dopamine reward pathways such as the amydala and hippocampus are highly activated in smokers when observing someone smoking. They also found nonsmokers don’t have any response to the images. If you think about this it makes sense. I know when I’m hungry and I see someone on television eating a food I like I want to eat the food as well. If I see someone eating a food I do not like it doesn’t affect me. I have learned from other psychology classes and from reading that there is a name for neurons that are activated both when we are doing a particular action as was as observing the same action: mirror neurons. This is a new and somewhat controversial idea in neuroscience from what I understand. I hope we address this topic sometime this semester as I find it is quite interesting.
Concepts we have covered in chapter three of our text that relate to this article and the study it cites include the neurotransmitter dopamine and its role in the reward process, the role of the amydala and hippocampus as approach-orientated structures, and the use of fMRI in brain imaging. Understanding these concepts made reading the article and the study much easier to comprehend and appreciate.
This information reinforces the idea that it is incredibly hard to quit smoking even with the knowledge that it is bad for your health. According to the article about half of smokers attempt to quit each year with only about 5 percent succeeding. All of the information I have learned from the text and the article teach me it is hard to find the motivation to quit smoking. Beyond the physical addiction of nicotine there is also a behavioral addiction of the act of smoking itself and this is evidenced by the fact that watching someone smoke makes smokers want to smoke. That is important to keep in mind when attempting to quit and many ex-smokers know this and choose replacement behaviors such as chewing gum.
It is a nice as a idea to ban smoking from movies but as a regulation it flies in the face of what is generally accepted as freedom of speech and expression. It makes little sense to ban smoking in movies if it’s a perfectly legal thing to do and a lot of what we see in movies is definitely not legal or moral (murder, violence.) I believe it is up to the individual to separate reality from movies, even if it unconsciously tempts parts of our brains to do otherwise. That is why we have our higher functioning parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex for executive reasoning and decision making.
Terms: fMRI, dopamine, amydala, hippocampus, neurotrasnmitter, approach-orientated structures
Aside from telling us smoking is bad and is one of the leading causes of death in the US. This article is telling us how certain events can lead to smoking. How just watching a movie with people smoking triggers a section of the brain to drive the body to make the movements that I typical smoker would make. Also suggest that another problem the movies offer is there ability retrigger a link in the brain associated with the physical habits of smoking such as getting an ex-smokers to smoke again just by getting them to reach for that pack. Those movies make smoking look cool which might increase the likelihood of kids to pick up smoking. They also prevent cuts and wounds from healing correctly, leading to one of the major reasons that surgeries and fractures end up poorly. Then it goes on to say how 20% of Americans are smokers and that 50% try to quit smoking every year, but only around 5% succeed. Even with all the offered help and behavioral therapies out there, 50% of those that quit relapse back to smoking within a year.
My thoughts to be blatantly honest, I’d have to say this article is common sense. Of course smoking is addictive and hard to stop; you can see that with your own eyes everywhere you go. Even knowing that the number one side effect of smoking is lung cancer doesn’t stop people from smoking I think this article is pointless. If cancer isn’t scary enough to get people to try harder to stop or start in the first place, than this article has no real impact at all. From a biopsychology point of view this article does point out an interesting topic. The thing that I found most interesting and got me thinking was how it is the leading preventable cause of death. Is it only curtain kinds of cigarettes or cigars that need be smoked? What I found out wasn’t all that new but a few things caught my eye. Such as smokeless tobacco is more risky than regular tobacco, in that it can increase ones risk of death by causing a condition known as ventricular arrhythmias. Were the heart doesn’t beat correctly leading to little or no blood flow throughout the body to the organs. Not new but still interesting, is that even secondhand smoking “environmental tobacco smoke" can lead to death, either from lung cancer or heart disease. Along with almost everything else in the world men are at higher risk of dying from lung cancer than women but on the other hand have the same tripled increase of dying from heart disease as women do.
Using my understanding from chapter three toward this article has been a real help in just understanding the underlying problems that can contribute to the smoking problem. I can say that smoking is an addictive drug that with repeated use produces hypersensitivity to dopamine stimulation, that good feeling. With repeated stimulation one builds up a tolerance so when the dopamine does occur there is a greater degree of rewarding feeling. If we go back to day-to day events people have their highs and lows. Say a smoker is having a stressful day, the hormone cortisol is going to kick in, which in turn activates the hypothalamus then the pituitary gland which in turn allows the endocrine system or “adrenocortical system” in this case, to release the hormone into the body.
Terms: hypersensitivity, dopamine, tolerance, day-to day events, cortisol, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, endocrine system, adrenocortical system
According to the article "Smoking in Movies: Why Your Brain Thinks it's Cool", by Picciotto, recent research has shown that watching movies in which the characters are shown smoking a cigarette activate a part of the viewers brain particular to movements a smoker makes. Even though the majority of people think it's pointless to do research on smoking because it's a bad habit or that it's just bad for you and the smoker should just have more willpower to quit, this bit of research provides more insight on how ex-smokers may relapse and how people begin. The American Lung Association as well as the CDC proposed to remove smoking from the movies and presented the finding of this study as well as statistics from how many deaths are caused by tobacco, which is approximately 443,000 a year. However, the top guys at different big tobacco companies deny the fact that smoking is addictive.
My thoughts on this article are mixed; I'm surprised and interested in the fact that researchers have discovered your brain gets stimulated by watching another person smoke and strengthens the movements to do so. However, I'm more than upset that CEO's at tobacco companies deny still to look at the facts, even when presented with the data right before their eyes. Obviously, they will do whatever to keep making money, even if their product is the leading cause of death every year. Despite my upset from this ongoing problem with the big tobacco companies, I'm hopeful that this new research will pave the way for additional research on how to prevent relapse. Since less than 5% of smokers succeed at finally quitting, there must be another alternative to different nicotine therapies. Another thing I found interesting about this article was that important organizations such as the CDC and the ALA proposed to end smoking in television. Since there has already been laws passed that people cannot smoke in public places, it makes sense to also ban it from television. Out of sight, out of mind.
I decided to look up more information about how nicotine affects the brain and what biological makes someone feel they need to smoke. From the article above, I went to the website for Society for Neuroscience. The article "Eliminating Protein in Specific Brain Cells Blocks Nicotine Reward", talks about how nicotine binds to specific receptors in the brain, called nicotinic receptors, and by removing these sites led mice to not seek out nicotine. Nicotine acts on the reward system of the brain by releasing anxiety-reducing effects, where dopamine is the prime component. This newer finding will help scientists develop better tobacco cessation medications. It also provides more insight as to why smokers continue to smoke despite knowing all the consequences. The article also touches upon results from previous studies, such as that blocking the nicotinic receptors within the VTA, ventral tegmental area, which houses motivation, emotion, and addiction. The most important finding of this study was that researchers pointed out the two key fundamental things that keep people from quitting, reward and anxiety. By pointing out these elements, future research on this topic can provide more insight on how to condition people to not reach for the cigarette.
Based on the knowledge I learned from chapter 3, it was easier to understand both articles. For example, from the book, I found that three principles were most relevant to this article because it talks about an environmental event occuring (watching a movie with a smoker), then the biochemical agent (dopamine and nicotine attaching to the nicotinic receptor), brain structure (hypothalamus, VTA, amygdala, hippocampus), and the aroused motivation or emotion. Understanding this process is most important, especially since it can be applied to many other situations. Chapter 3 also helped me brush up on these key brain structures that affect motivation and emotion, as well as addiction.
Overall, from these articles and chapter 3, I've learned that quitting something like smoking takes way more than willpower. Yes it is a bad habit, but that doesn't mean research shouldn't focus on it. Actually, it should be the most thing under study since it's the major cause of death every year. I've learned that there needs to be better alternatives or programs for smokers to help them quit. Since reward and anxiety are key concepts in why people continue to smoke, these areas should be the focus on cessation programs or medications. If people smoke because they have problems with anxiety, maybe they should see a counselor. And for the addicted people how just cant seem to quite, maybe a surgery should be implemented to remove those nicotinic receptors from the VTA area of the brain. Overall, from my recent knowledge, I am ever more hopeful for the future that the number of deaths per year from smoking will decrease.
TERMS: Addiction, nicotine, nicotinic receptors, dopamine, reward system, VTA, three prinicples, biochemical agent, hypothalmus, amygdala, hippocampus, motivation, emotion, willpower.
This article discussed how smoking in movies could cause smokers that have quit smoking to relapse. One part that was fascinating is how seeing someone in a movie go through the motions of smoking can activate the parts of the brain responsible for those movements used when smoking. The article also discussed how seeing smoking in movies could cause kids to start smoking. I found it interesting the smoking causes more death each year than illegal drug use, AIDS, alcohol use, car accidents, suicides, and murder combined. I was shocked to read that the CEO’s of seven tobacco companies testified that they believe nicotine is not addictive. I was amazed that one fifth of our country’s adults smoke. It was depressing to read that more than half of ex-smokers relapse within a year after quitting.
The aspect of the article that was most interesting to me is how seeing someone smoke in movies can activate parts of the brain that control the movements used when you smoke. However, what really interested me is how seeing someone smoke in the movies can lead to kids smoking. I found an article on Medical News Today that talked about how the amount of smoking in kids’ movies has decreased. I think it is great that the amount of smoking in kids’ movies has decreased. However, the article did say that the amount of smoking varies by movie company. However, with no legal restrictions on smoking in films, it makes sense that there would be variances between companies. The article does say that the Center for Disease Control reports that teenagers with the highest amount of exposure to smoking in movies are twice as likely to smoke when compared to the teenagers with the lowest amount of exposure to smoking in movies.
In chapter 3 we learn that dopamine is the chemical associated with good feelings. When you experience something good, more dopamine is released from the ventral tegmental area into your system. However, dopamine can also be released when you see something that your brain knows will give you good feelings. When a person is addicted to smoking, the brain sees a cigarette or the actions that go along with smoking and it causes the brain to release more dopamine. This release in dopamine can act as incentive that makes you want to smoke. The dopamine release is especially strong when it is something unexpected. Dopamine is a very powerful hormone and can have a major impact on our actions and motivations.
Chapter 3 does teach us that it can be particularly difficult for someone to quit smoking. You essentially have to reprogram your brain so that seeing or smelling a cigarette won’t cause a release in dopamine. You essentially have to control the release of dopamine to the rest of your body. This is not something that can be easily changed on your own. Even if you are able to quit, you still need to stop long enough for your brain to not react when it sees or smells cigarette smoke. This could take years and it still may never go completely away. It also doesn’t help that you are trying to fight the addictiveness of the nicotine in cigarettes at the same time that you are trying to get your brain to stop releasing dopamine. It is a very difficult goal to stop smoking but some people are still able to achieve that goal. You need to have a very high motivation to quit and strong willpower.
Terms Used: Brain, Dopamine, Nicotine, Hormones, Addiction, Motivation, Willpower, Ventral Tegmental Area
The article talked about how smoking in movies is not only bad in regards that it influences kids to start smoking because they think if the actors smoke it is "cool", but also because it triggers an area in ex- smokers brain that is linked to the physical habits of smoking. Making them relapse and start smoking again. While CEOs of tobacco companies say that nicotine is not addictive, the statistics say otherwise. About 20 percent of U.S. adults are smokers. More than 50 percent try to quit smoking each year, but less than 5 percent of all smokers succeed. With multiple therapies, like nicotine patches, medicine, cognitive behavioral therapy, more than 50 percent of ex-smokers still relapse to smoking within a year. It is also the leading preventable cause of death in most countries, with about 443,000 deaths per year due to smoking in the United States alone.
The part of the article that made me laugh was when the seven CEOs of tobacco companies were before the Congress and stated, "I believe nicotine is not addictive." How can they say that nicotine is not additive when it has been proven that it is? The article did a good job giving statistics that proved nicotine is addictive. I found it interesting that just watching a movie with someone smoking can trigger the brain and make an ex-smoker want to smoke again. The article talked about brain areas that are linked to the physical habits of smoking, but they did not explain what areas in the brain. I want to know more about these areas and where they are located in the brain. I learned that the mesolimbic dopamine reward circuits is known to be activated by addictive drugs. Areas of the brain that are activated are the right posterior amygdala, posterior hippocampus, ventral tegmental area, and medial thalamus. Areas related to visuospatial attention are affected too. This contain the bilateral prefrontal and parietal cortex and right fusiform gyrus.
In chapter three, the release of dopamine creates good feelings. Nicotine in cigarettes releases dopamine. The anticipation of the reward, like nicotine, triggers the dopamine release before the motivated behavior. When an ex-smoker sees somebody in the movie smoking, dopamine is released in anticipation. The dopamine release teaches one events in the environment that are rewarding. The dopamine release is reinforcement to acquire incentive behavior to get to the reward. Since smoking gives people good feelings, it is a reinforcement to continue smoking and to seek it out. Before, I was told if someone wanted to quit smoking, then they had to be serious and really want to quit. I learned that there is more biological motivation too. Nicotine releases dopamine which creates positive feelings. The release of dopamine activates voluntary goal-directed approach responses. This means it triggers a motivated search behavior to find and use the desired nicotine. Because nicotine is an addictive drug, it causes dopamine-induced neural hypersensitization and can last for several years. By using nicotine patches or prescription drugs to quit smoking, they stopped "liking" the nicotine, but still "wanted" it. "Liking" is a motivations state that happens after a reward, "wanting" is a motivational states that happens before a reward. To experience the full reward, a person has to "like" and "want" a stimulus, like nicotine.
TERMS: dopamine, reward, motivated behavior, incentive behavior, goal-directed approach, addictive, "liking", "wanting"
I found it interesting that watching someone smoke in a movie can contribute to relapse, but it makes sense. Like anything else in classical conditioning, some things indirectly stimulate conditioned responses. It is like the ABC’s of behavior. There is the antecedent, the behavior and the consequence. In this situation, the antecedent is buying cigarettes, or watching a movie that makes you want to smoke. The behavior is smoking, and the consequence is being subject to relapse. When we have learned a behavior that is rewarding, it is easier to want to go back to that behavior. Smoking reduces hunger, so losing weight may be seen as a reward for smoking. In addition, it is like any commercial seen on TV, or any other advertisements. The goal is to get consumers to want their product. When Burger King shows their big, tasteful whopper on the commercial, the point is to remind people of their options and get them to choose Burger King for lunch or dinner. When a smoker sees someone smoking, it is usually in a positive context. People are smoking to lose weight, relieve stress, or be social. It reminds them of how much they enjoy smoking, or how much they miss it. Smoking is a negative reinforcer, because it takes away something, such as stress while it reinforces your behavior.
This relates to chapter 3 in many ways. I think it particularly relates to dopamine release. As we talked about in class, it is scientifically proven that unexpected pleasurable events can trigger dopamine release. In this case, watching a movie is aesthetically pleasing and therefore may trigger dopamine. In addition to the movie, the context of the movie might reinforce the idea that smoking is fun.
I didn’t know that smoking prevents wounds from healing so I wanted to learn more about that. I followed the link on the article to read into the effects of smoking and healing wounds. I found that nicotine constricts blood vessels, depleting the supply of blood to a wound. On top of that, nicotine in your blood increases the chances of blood clots. Lung cancer is the most commonly known consequence from smoking, because smoking damages the cilia on our lungs that help clear mucus. However, it is also bad for your heart. The effects of cigarette toxins can produce myocardial hypoxia: lack of oxygen to the heart. This can cause serious problems during surgeries when patients need anesthesia.
What it taught me about the motivation to quit smoking is that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Even for those who want to quit, they have so many extraneous variables to look for. They need to have the control to say no when someone offers, they need to resist buying them even though they are around every corner and at every gas station, and they have to have the will power to be in certain situation and not let it get in their way of quitting, such as watching movies.
Terms: Antecedent, behavior, consequence, classical conditioning, rewarding, negative reinforcer, relapse, extraneous variables, nicotine, myocardial hypoxia, dopamine release
This article was of no surprise to me because I had heard of the concept before. Marina Picciotta explains that we all understand that smoking is bad for us, but many still give into the temptation and blame in on the “habit.” Science can back this up with active brain areas linked to addiction. This can also be combined with the media by having actors smoke in movies. Watching an actor smoke during a film triggers activity to brain areas that drive body movements similar to a smoker. Marina says that this is responsible for many cases of relapse. If a person quit smoking tobacco and is watching a movie when the actor pulls out a cigarette and reaches their hand up to their mouth and takes a drag, areas of the brain are activated to relapse to past smoking behavior. Many organizations have tried to ban smoking in movies because they think the media is manipulating the viewers by portraying smoking as something cool to do. It is no secret how harmful tobacco is and how deadly the results are. For people that cannot seem to escape the temptations, hotlines and therapies are available but the likelihood of a smoking fully committed to quitting is very slim.
I really enjoyed this article because I am a true believe that tobacco is a drug that should not be legal because of the amount of deaths it causes. It is ludicrous to me that we would allow our people to be manipulated and robbed by the tobacco company knowing that nicotine is scientifically proven to activate brain areas leading to addiction. The most interesting thing I found out when reading the article was that cigarettes kill more people a year than murders, suicides, vehicle accidents, illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, and AIDS combined. I knew it killed a lot of people, but more than all of those put together is shocking. I wanted research more about this and see why this number isn’t enough to ban nicotine abuse. I found a good article on CNN discussing whether or not we should ban smoking tobacco. A man named Practor brings up a good point saying, “we don’t just educate parents to keep toys painted with lead-based paints away from their children’s mouths; we ban the use of lead-based paint.”He goes on to say two things. First, the FDA should use their powers to maintain the levels of nicotine, the drug’s purpose being to create and maintain addiction, so that cigarettes remain below the levels of addiction. Second, he thinks the FDA should take into account that cigarettes used to have higher alkaline making it harder to inhale, which is how it should be again. The article was very interesting and gave one reason for not banning smoking being the prohibition and worrying that crime and rebellion would result.
This article goes right along with chapter 3 because it refers to brain activity. We are not always as responsible to our actions as we think. Chemicals released in our brain can also be responsible for feelings such as cravings or appetite which can be the same for the addiction to nicotine. Activity in the brain is the reason for such craving to nicotine. More specifically, dopamine is responsible for positive feelings that explain the biology of addiction and what drives people to smoke.
This all tells me that it can be very hard to find motivation to quit smoking. The brain controls our perceptions and behavior, making it hard for someone to gain control over such things. Watching a movie containing actors smoking can trigger activity in the brain which in turn, motivates someone to behave as the actor and smoke. I would like to think that we have control over our mind and that I could motivate myself to anything. That may not always be the case, but I like to think positively and like to see the strength in people.
Terms: addiction, dopamine, motivation, perception
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/14/singer-should-we-ban-cigarettes/
Smoking
This article is obviously about smoking. It keys in on the addictive behavior of it though and the effects of watching someone smoke particularly on television and how that can cause the addictive behavior in the brain to trigger. This trigger can be activated whether this person is a current smoker or a quit smoker and can in fact cause a person who has quit to relapse. I found this piece interesting. Even though I have never been a smoker, I can still relate with the correlation of seeing a behavior and wanting to do it. My example that always affects me is seeing people eat. I work at the dining center and seeing people eat through a meal always makes me hungry or want to eat. It doesn’t matter if I’m hungry or not before I get there. Even being around my roommates at home if they are watching tv munching on chips I got to have some, even if I’m not hungry.
The part I found most interesting about the article was how our brain can be affected by seeing things. I found an article called the Chameleon Effect on the web at www.spring.org.uk/2009/11/the-chameleon-effect.php. This article talked about a study on how people naturally copy behaviors they see other people and how if someone copies the behaviors you are doing you naturally tend to like them more.
Chapter three helps us understand how addictions work or become addictions in the first place with how it stimulates dopamine. Also it also explains how day-to-day events stir biochemical agents into action. If seeing someone smoke (the environmental event) triggers the memory of that smoking feeling of coarse the craving is going to come back. I don’t know if there is a specific solution on how to quit smoking other then don’t start but I agree with the out of sight out of mind theory of the article that not putting it on television is a good start.
Terms: addiction, dopamine, motivated action, day-to-day events stir biochemical agents ingto action, brain
This article is about the effects of smoking in movies on both kids and ex-smokers, but mostly ex-smokers. Nicotine is an addictive substance and quitting it is hard for many reasons. One, the smoker must overcome physical need for the nicotine. Then, they have to overcome the behavioral addiction of having the cigarette in their hand or mouth. Finally, they are constantly presented with situations, like actors smoking in movies, that trigger brain responses that make it more likely for them to smoke again.
I knew that nicotine constricts blood vessels, but I hadn't made the connection that it would cause wounds to heal more slowly. In high school, our coaches always drove the point home not to smoke because the smoke in our lungs would make us run slower, breathe harder, etc., but they never said anything about chewing tobacco, so most of our wrestlers chewed to keep their weight down (by decreasing their hunger, a side effect of nicotine). Since nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, I wanted to know more about the wound-healing side effects of nicotine and how those affect athletes. So I found this article: http://www.tobaccofreemaine.org/channels/educators/tobacco_free_athletes.php
And it confirms that the smoke from tobacco isn't the only way that nicotine harms athletes. Among decreasing lung function, it increases heart rate and blood pressure, which are especially dangerous for people exercising and working their heart more than a non-athlete would.
The most interesting thing to me is that simply seeing somebody smoking can make an ex-smoker crave smoking again. This is really relevant to me not because I smoke, but because a friend of mine is trying to quit for the second time. Last time, he knew he was going to have to deal with the physical side effects, so riding out the cravings was easy, but he didn't anticipate the behavioral habit to be even harder to break. After 5 or so years of smoking, the behavior was so ingrained that it was natural and he wouldn't alway be aware of even things like reaching for or lighting a cigarette.
Dopamine plays a bigger role in smoking behaviors than I previously though, even after taking a class of psyhoactive drugs. The preparation to smoke acts as an incentive and becomes rewarding even before the nicotine has gotten into one's system. I found myself comparing it to the behavioral factor of addiction that we learned about in Drugs class, where the setting and procedure that precede taking a drug are rewarding on their own and can produce an expectancy high before there has been any reaction to the drug itself. I think this is why smoking is so hard to quit. Getting out a cigarette and lighting it is like smelling chocolate chop cookies baking. The person knows that something rewarding is coming and dopamine is released to tell the person that something good is coming their way. The brain begins to both like AND want nicotine, which even further increases the reward when the brain's desires are fulfilled. On top of that, there's the reward release of dopamine triggered by the nicotine after it's been absorbed and attaches to receptor sites in the brain. When combined with the hypersensitization of the brain to nicotine, it's no wonder that so few people successfully quit smoking for even a year.
This article helped me learn a lot about how hard it is to quit smoking and how simply wanting to quit isn't enough to help someone quit. It's definitely going to help me make sure my friend has the support he needs to stay smoke-free for as long as he can.
Terms: behavior, dopamine, wanting vs. liking, reward, incentive, addictive, habit
The “Smoking in Movies” article stated that smoking in movies can have a large effect on current smokers or past smokers. Seeing someone smoke in a movie activates the areas of the brain responsible for the physical act of taking a drag from a cigarette. This increases the desire, or the want, for a cigarette, which could lead to relapse. I was surprised that just viewing someone smoking could increase the likelihood of a relapse. Non-smokers are not affected by seeing someone smoke in a movie. The article also talked about more known facts related to smoking, like the idea that smoking in movies increases the likelihood of kids smoking because it looks cool. This makes sense because the kids want to try it out to impress their peers. It also stated that smoking was the leading preventable cause of death in most countries. It talked about the addictive effects of nicotine and smoking. I was surprised that only 5% of smokers succeed in quitting out of the 50% that try each year, even though there is help available. Telephone helplines, cognitive behavioral therapy, and nicotine patches can help, but there is still a high percentage of relapse within a year of quitting.
I thought the article brought up a good point about movies affecting both past and current smokers. I had known that smoking was addictive, but I hadn’t understood how just seeing someone smoke could bring back the desire to smoke. Now I understand it from a physiological standpoint. This idea, in addition to the high relapse rate, was very interesting to me. I also thought it was interesting that even with the help available for those quitting, there is still a high percentage of relapse. This suggests that we are missing a piece of the puzzle.
I was very surprised to read that smoking prevents wounds from healing. I wanted to learn more about it, so I looked into “The Effects of Smoking and Surgery” by Chisholm. Silverstein stated that smoking causes diminished blood supply to the wound because the nicotine constricts the blood vessels. Also, the nicotine increases platelet adhesiveness, increasing the risk for blood clots. After reading this article, I realized that that makes perfect sense; I had just never thought of it that way.
Chapter 3 helped me understand this article better. Smoking contains nicotine, a psychostimulant and neurotransmitter. A neurotransmitter is a chemical messenger within the brain’s central nervous system. Psychostimulants are addictive and produce hypersensitivity to dopamine stimulation. This means that smoking causes an increased sensation over a normal pleasurable activity, such as eating. This explains why smoking is so addictive. Some prescription drugs can take the “liking” out of nicotine by preventing the dopamine release while smoking. Liking occurs when people are comparing choices and occurs after the reward is received. In this case, “liking” would be the result of finding the dopamine release from the nicotine pleasurable. Even without the “liking,” the “wanting” is still there. “Wanting” occurs before receiving a reward: In this case, before smoking. The individual wants a cigarette because he or she is anticipating the dopamine release from smoking. This tells me that even if someone wants to quit smoking, it will be extremely hard for them to do. They will have to find a way to motivate themselves in order to overcome their addiction, and they will have to have a lot of willpower in order to do so! They might need to find other activities that they find pleasurable so they get dopamine from other places. In addition, once the “liking” is out of the way, they might learn that the “wanting” will not lead to what it used to. Addiction changes the way an individual thinks and the way their body and brain respond.
Terms: psychostimulant, hypersensitivity, dopamine, addiction, neurotransmitter, liking, wanting, willpower
This article is about the psychological effect that smoking on movies has on an ex smoker. The learned behavior of a smoker of lighting a cigarette and smoking is activates certain areas of the brain. When smoking is seen on a movie or TV, that part of the brain is activated for an ex-smoker which creates a desire to relapse. The American Lung association and CDC have tried to put a stop to smoking in movies because of this relapse problem as well as smoking being portrayed as “cool”. This article created awareness of the difficulty ex-smokers have, and why smoking on TV can really impact them.
I had never thought of the impact of smoking in movies and how it can legitimately psychologically affect individuals who are ex-smokers. I think that the American Lung Association and CDC have a valid argument as to why smoking in movies should be eliminated. They may indirectly responsible for deaths due to relapse of smokers, which is something major to consider. However, I do see the other side of the argument where smoking may be used to portray a character in a certain way such as a rebellious teenager, or a criminal. So it makes sense that the TV and movie industry would fight this activism.
I chose to learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and specifically how it is used to help individuals stop smoking. This is interesting to me because I think therapy can be very helpful to individuals instead of just giving them a drug or patch and sending them on their way. The way that this works to help individuals quit smoking is using positive thinking and goals to change the behavior of smoking (Robb, 2011). A study done in the UK used group of 122 participants and tracked their progress over time using CBT to see if it worked for either reducing or abstaining from cigarette use. Overall around 34% of participants had reduced or completely abstained cigarette consumption (Sykes, 2001). This can be viewed as a good or a bad result, but when looking at the success of most individuals trying to quit smoking this percentage is fairly high.
Chapter three discussed the impact that the brain has on motivation and emotion, and reading this article gave it a real life application of what was in the reading. The brain sends out chemical messengers called neurotransmitters that stimulate different things in our bodies. For instance smoking a cigarette is pleasurable to an individual who is addicted to the nicotine, so physiologically the brain is experiencing release of dopamine which gives the individual a pleasurable feeling which motivates them to participate in that particular behavior.
Since I myself have never tried or been addicted to nicotine, I do not know how difficult it is to quit. This article shed some light on why it is so hard for individuals to quit, because from an outside perspective it is easy to criticize individuals for not being able to quit. Knowing how much of a role the brain plays in this it makes a lot of sense that it becomes very difficult for individuals to quit and not relapse. I was also unaware how sensitive ex-smokers are to visually seeing someone smoke. This gives me more understanding about smokers and how difficult it is to quit smoking.
Terms: Chemical messengers, neurotransmitters, dopamine, stimulate, physiologically
http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/3/255.short
http://www.everydayhealth.com/smoking-cessation/living/coping-with-the-urge-behaviorally-and-mentally.aspx
Most of us have spent our entire lives hearing about how bad smoking is. Based on this article from the Huffington Post, Hollywood may need to be told how bad smoking is a few more times. This piece provided information on why seeing someone smoking in a movie is bad, not only for nonsmokers, but also for those who have tried to quit the habit.
I thought the piece was very interesting and informational. I like how they took something that had been considered bad for a long time-showing smoking in movies, and found out exactly why it was bad and how much it actually affected the people who saw it. It is always nice when science can back up claims and make then valid.
The most interesting part of this article for me was the argument to keep smoking out of movies. After reading several articles, I found that watching something happen seems to be the best way to learn something. By showing smoking in movies, children are learning a behavior.
I found that the information from chapter 3 really helped me understand what having an “addiction” really meant. I have never understood why people smoke, but knowing that smoking release a positive chemical helps me understand the motivation behind smoking just a little more.
The biggest take away I have after reading chapter 3 and this article is smoking is more than just a habit. Just like I wake up wanting coffee, smokers wake up wanting a smoke. Even though it is a very unhealthy habit, because of how the nicotine affects the pleasure center, it is a very strong addiction.
Terms used: pleasure center, addiction, motivation.
This article examines how environmental cues combine with physiological drives to promote relapse in an ex-smoker, and the implication this has on cigarette consumption in movies. The article states that just seeing the act of smoking can cause an ex-smoker or a child to smoke. Movie stars make smoking appear desirable, but also trigger in ex-smokers the habitual hand to mouth movement performed hundreds of times a day by smokers. Actually, I’m an ex-smoker and reading this article made me think about how delicious it would be to light a cigarette and how satisfying it would be to bring it to my mouth and flick the butt after. Gross.
About half of ex-smokers will relapse. Cigarettes are a tough drug to quit because the act of smoking itself releases dopamine, causing motivation for another cigarette to experience more dopamine release. The influence of seeing someone smoke in movies can stimulate dopamine and increase chances of relapse. This combined with day to day experiences such as stress make quitting smoking for good very difficult.
I was interested in the fact that this article seemed very one sided. I try to be skeptical about research that implies a causal relationship. I researched a few more articles on the effects of smoking in movies to see if I could find another side of the argument. I searched google scholar and found nothing to go against negative connotations of smoking in movies. I did find out, according to one study that cigarette consumption has decreased by 200% since 1950, but as of 2002 smoking in the media has risen since then which was surprising to me. I understand why a writer may depend on smoking to build a character, but maybe there should be a disclaimer for cigarette smoking in movies, much like you see to warn of violent behavior or adult language.
The article says that smoking is bad: it is the leading cause of preventable deaths, it hinders healing, and it is highly addictive. Further, the author cites an article in The Journal of Neuroscience which purports that, when smokers (or even ex-smokers) observe smoking behaviors in movies, their addiction/habit causes them to unconsciously begin to replicate those behaviors - which may make it more difficult to quit.
I don’t think that this is news: any smoker could have told them that. I do it all the time: I see someone smoking (in RL or in media), and I think, “You know, I could really go for a cigarette.” My hand is already reaching for the pack in my pocket, and I have to remind myself that I’m in a theater/on campus.
Then again, I think many people do the same thing when they see someone enjoying a rich slice of chocolate cake. (Face it: you did it yourself just now, and all I did was mention the cake.)
That’s why it is so interesting to me that someone actually spent resources to conduct a study of this, when it seems so obvious. In fact, I was interested enough to actual click the link and read the original Journal article. Some of my confusion was cleared up in the article by Scott Huettel, who said, “This finding builds upon the growing body of evidence that addiction may be reinforced not just by drugs themselves, but by images and other experiences associated with those drugs.” The main point here being that visual cues (such as film images) can induce the craving for a drug - not a good thing, when one is trying to quit.
My girlfriend wants me to quit. She’s not the first. And I know -consciously- that I should. But physically - and emotionally - I still crave that cigarette. I like to smoke. And I’m sure (as explained in chapter 3) that much of that has to do with the effects that nicotine has on my brain: releasing the neurotransmitters dopamine (pleasure), endorphins (pain relief), and glutamate (supports memory). In short, it’s a pleasurable experience that gets more deeply ingrained into my memory every single time I smoke - and what’s more (as described in the article) it is a pleasurable memory and a craving that is triggered every time I even see someone else smoking.
As mentioned in the chapter, “Motivation cannot be separated from the social context in which it is embedded.” For me, smoking has a whole slew of associations: my father smoked, my brothers smoke, and I myself have smoked for over 20 years (I have a photo somewhere of me, standing on the Berlin Wall as it was being torn down, cigarette in hand) - and all of this simply adds to the strength of the psychological addiction. To overcome all of that, my motivation level is seriously going to have to kick up several notches (though it seems that I could perhaps help with that by not watching movies where the good guy smokes).
Terms: addiction, habit, behavior, motivation, nicotine, chocolate, cake, neurotransmitter, dopamine, endorphins, glutamate, social context
This article brings about scientific data that conclude that by watching people smoke in movies it activates the same brain areas in smokers. The argument that Hollywood glamorizes smoking to look cool and hook people is now scientifically backed up. This is a potentially harmful effect due to the health concerns related to smoking. Smoking is also one of the most preventable causes of death in most countries. Most people who attempt to quit do not succeed, barely 5 percent stay clean. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years with laws pertaining to smoking in movies. Within recent years we have seen a push to ban smoking in public places if this trend continues the tobacco industry will have their hands more than full.
I find nicotine in cigarettes to be interesting. Where does it come from? I have always wondered why nicotine is so addicting and what ways it intoxicates the body.
I found an article on nicotine and the brain. When a person inhales smoke they're taking in small particles of tar that have nicotine “riding” on it. When the smoke reaches the lungs the nicotine is absorbed almost immediately. In only 8 seconds after being inhaled the effects of nicotine are present.
The article pointed out that nicotine can be stimulating or relaxing depending on the persons mood and amount of nicotine inhaled.
Chapter three helped me understand the article on nicotine better because the readings pointed out the dopamine stimulation that is found in cigarettes. Addictive drugs like psycho stimulants are very powerful reinforcers because reoccurring usage produces hypersensitivity to dopamine stimulation. Nicotine causes dopamine-induced neural hypersensitization which can last for years. I found that some pharmaceuticals help smokers quit by taking the dopamine-related pleasure out of smoking. Finding the motivation to quit smoking can be extremely hard due to the hard-wiring of the brain. Repeated patterns are hard to break especially when a bad habit releases dopamine into the human body.
Terms: psycho stimulants, reinforcers, hypersensitivity, dopamine stimulation,
The article “Smoking in Movies: Why Your Brain Thinks It’s Cool” is presenting some new findings on the study of nicotine addiction. New research has shown that watching video clips of someone smoking not only activates the parts of the brain that are associated with addiction in smokers, but the visual cues also activate the parts of the brain that control goal-oriented behavior, such as smoking a cigarette. This research demonstrates that there are more obstacles facing people who are trying to quit smoking than the physical withdrawal symptoms. A simple scene in a popular Hollywood film could induce a relapse in a non-suspecting ex-smoker.
I found a few things in this article interesting. I was actually surprised by the statistic given for the number of smokers. According to the article, 20% of U.S. adults are smokers. This seems low to me. During my study abroad experience, I noticed that a much larger percent of the population smoked. In fact, there were cigarette vending machines on most streets. The other thing I found interesting was that the CEO’s of tobacco companies actually claimed that nicotine was not addictive. This seems just absurd to me. And lastly, (and probably most relevantly), I found it interesting that there a multiple biological processes involved in the addiction to smoking. I have often heard from family members or other adults who are trying to quit that they just miss having something in their hand. It makes sense to me that the motion or action of smoking has a biological component in the addiction paradigm.
Ironically, I decided to find some more information on how visual cues influence the brain in smokers. In my Google Scholar search, I came across what I thought was a great article called “Spontaneous Action Representation in Smokers when Watching Move Characters Smoke” by Wagner et. al. (for the full article, please follow this link: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/3/894.full.) Little did I know that it was the very same article that the original article was summarizing. However, I will provide a few more details regarding the study.
The researchers main focus is on an area in the brain called the action observation network (AON), or more specifically, the anterior intraparietal sulcus and the lateral inferior frontal gyrus. This regions are responsible for observing meaningful actions, mentally planned actions, or when imitating the actions of others. The researchers studied these areas by having 17 smokers and 17 non-smokers watch video clips that depicted someone smoking while undergoing a fMRI. This allowed the researchers to see which parts of the brain were most active during each scene. They found that the smokers had more activation in the areas commonly associated with reward and craving as well as in the AON. In their discussion, the authors state that these findings could have implications for smokers who are trying to quit. A cue, such as a movie depicting someone smoking, could activate the parts of the brain associated with the reward response (increase in dopamine) and the behavior of smoking a cigarette, which could possibly lead to a relapse.
My understanding of the biological components of addiction was much more comprehensive after reading Chapter 3, “The Motivated and Emotional Brain”. Drugs such as nicotine can be extremely addicting because they can make the brain structures associated with addiction, such as the nucleus accumbens, hypersensitive to dopamine. This is an example of the second principle discussed in chapter two, or that biochemical agents (such as neurotransmitters and hormones) stimulate specific brain structures (such as the nucleus accumbens). The article also demonstrates the third principle of the study of the motivated and emotional brain, which is that day-to-day events stir biochemical agents into action. The visual cue from a movie or an advertisement depicting smoking (environmental event) can evoke the release of a biochemical agent that will act upon the brain structures associated with addiction, which results in craving (aroused emotion).
I would say that my understanding of addiction has become much more knowledgeable and scientifically grounded. I understand that there are multiple factors contributing to the behavior, or smoking, and that quitting will be a difficult task for even the most motivated individual. There are factors contributing to the behavior that we may or may not be consciously aware of. Therefore, I think it is unfair for non-smokers to look down upon those who smoke or think that they do not have any willpower. Hopefully with continued research, scientists will find ways of helping smokers overcome their addiction. I also hope that society as a whole becomes a little more compassionate towards the smoker who is struggling to quit.
Terms: fMRI, reward, dopamine, nucleus accumbens, second principle, third principle, neurotransmitters, hormones, environmental event, biochemical agent, aroused emotion
From the article by Marina Picciotto Ph.D., she discussed how recent research shows that smoking in movies has a connection with making youth and ex-smokers take up smoking. Movies with popular actors and actresses make smoking look cool, and according to new study by watching movies with smoking it may cause certain areas of the brain that are connected to addiction and physical habits to be activated. Thus, leading the viewers of the film to feel the need to take up smoking or start smoking again. By taking up smoking that just invites more people to become part of the grim statistics due to smoking. I can honestly say that I had no idea that around 443,000 people die from smoking each year, which is sad because all of those deaths could have been prevented.
Also from the reading I was intrigued to find out that rates at which youth take up smoking due to seeing it in movies. According to: http://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/problem/moviessell.html, nonsmoking teens who witness famous stars smoking are sixteen times more likely to be okay with smoking. Another depressing statistic is that 44 percent of teens that do smoke started because they saw it in movies that they have seen, and that is just unacceptable. However, the likelihood of seeing smoking stop entirely in the movie industry is rather slim.
From chapter 3, I learned that dopamine is released in the body by the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to make someone feel good, and makes them want participates in things that make them feel good. Therefore, if one feels like that relaxes them, or if it makes them feel good because they are getting positive feedback from peers by smoking, it will lead them to want to smoke because they will receive that rush of dopamine. Then if a person anticipates the action or event to take place, like smoking with friends, they will receive that surge of dopamine and it will make them want to partake in the action. Also, if they are dealing with a stressful event and cortisol, the stress hormone, is released into the body a person will likely want to smoke so they can get more dopamine and begin to feel better.
As a person’s body is becoming addicted to the nicotine, and they are consistently getting a positive feeling from that release of dopamine, they are likely to continue smoking and will struggle if they attempt to quit. If someone chooses to quit smoking, it will be a constant struggle for him or her to overcome the want to take up smoking again. So, if someone were to be watching a movie where the actors are smoking that may send a release of dopamine to the ex-smoker, and it will make them feel that rush of dopamine that they had once had before when they were smoking and may make them fall prey to the bad habit. Some people may be able to overcome the urge to smoke by getting help from some of the sources mentioned in Picciotto’s article. Some of the tools a person may choose to use include telephone hotlines (quitlines), cognitive behavioral therapy, medicine, or nicotine replacement therapies, but most of all they need to have the willpower to want to quit and overcome the addiction.
Terms Used: ventral tegmental area (VTA), dopamine, addiction, cortisol, want, willpower, hormone
This article takes a look at some factors as to why quitting smoking can be so difficult for individuals. The biggest thing they looked at was environmental factors that provoke smoking patterns. The specific example they looked at was that the areas of the brain that are activated when smoking are also activated when viewing someone smoking. This is due to several factors including learned behavior, the addictive characteristics of nicotine, and certain brain areas. First of all the patterns leading to smoking, such as while driving, working, or while under stress, can become very ingrained and next to impossible to perform without the action of smoking. Secondly, the new study shows that certain areas of the brain are activated along with the habitual behavior. This means that it is both centers in our brain wanting to perform the smoking action because it has become second nature to us. Thirdly, the nicotine in cigarettes is addictive. That is the primary reason why people develop this dependency and why so few people succeed in quitting smoking. In my opinion, this article makes sense and provides better, more scientific reasoning for why we feel the need to smoke when we view others doing it when an individual has been addicted. I wanted to explore the effects of nicotine more and what other physiological effects smoking has on the body. One of the statements in the article said that smoking has also been shown to slow healing processes and causes surgeries to turn out poorly. When I looked back at an article that I had once read it reported that one of the physiological symptoms of smoking is that it causes the arteries in our bodies to constrict, thus restricting blood flow which is necessary for the healing process and slowing it down. The article we read relates easily to what we read in chapter 3 because it demonstrates in a practical manner how the environment, brain centers, and neurotransmitters/drugs applied to smoking. The environmental stimulus was observing people smoking. The brain centers were also activated causing this desire. The nicotine in the cigarettes acts as a stimulant and is extremely addictive which causes our a craving for another nicotine fix. What this information does teach me about quitting smoking is that it is extremely difficult. Yet another reason has developed as to why it is difficult because of this research. Merely seeing other people smoke is enough to send ex-smokers back a step and cause a craving. I have a much higher respect for people who have quit smoking for abstaining and keeping up their resistance to this temptation that is always around them.
Terms: learned behavior, habit, environment, addiction, nicotine, brain centers, neurotransmitter
In the article "Smoking in Movies: Why Your Brain Thinks It’s Cool," published in the Huffington Post, the writer takes a clear stand against smoking and smoking in movies. To back up their claims scientific facts were used. The article discussed how smoking activates areas in the brain that are linked to addiction, claiming that not only is the nicotine addictive, but the physical process of smoking can be addictive as well. Especially when a person is seen smoking in movies or on television, it can trigger the craving to smoke a cigarette. The American Lung Association and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have called for smoking to be banned in movies for this reason.
Smoking is the leading cause of death in most countries. In addition to a large number of side affects, smoking can also slow wound healing. The article states that there are an estimated 20% of adults in America who smoke cigarettes. Smoking can be very difficult to quit. There are many different therapies that are available to assist people in quitting smoking, however 50% of those who quit smoking relapse within a year.
This article was very informative. My mother has been a smoker for many years, though I really want her to quit, she has been unsuccessful in doing so. Smoking is a real crisis in our country, and I do think that there is a chance that when smokers see other people smoking in movies, they could be influenced to smoke a cigarette. However, I also beleive in our rights of free speech and free press. If they take away the right to put cigarettes in the movies, what next. It seems that as the popularity of smoking has decreased, so has the images of smoking in movies. Smoking had started long ago as being something that society accepted as "cool." Since then, smoking has become one of those habits that people try not to announce for fear of being looked down upon. While I do believe we should continue to take the fight against cigarette addiction head on, I don't believe that people's rights should be taken away in the process.
I found it interesting that the American Lung Association and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention would choose to fight for the banning of smoking in movies. While I understand why they are doing it, I just don't see how taking away our rights of making movies the way we want them would really have that large of an impact on smoking addiction. I think that people who smoke are going to smoke regardless of what they see on the movie screen.
While I know that biochemical agents can be stirred into action by day-to-day events, there are so many other events in a day that would stir up the biochemical agents that stimulate the urge to smoke a cigarette.
I wanted to find out more about the side effects of smoking and along the way I found a very interesting article talking about the benefits of quitting. This article was in The New York Times, Thursday, January 26, 2012, and is titled "Making the Decision to Quit Tobacco." Some of the interesting facts that the article discussed included, what happens to your body when you quit smoking. They included the fact that your blood pressure and pulse rate drop to normal and the temperature of your hands and feet increases to normal after eight hours. Also, your risk of a sudden heart attack decreases within 24 hours of quitting, and within 48 hours of quitting smoking, the nerve endings begin to regenerate and your sense of smell and taste begin to return to normal. Within two weeks to three months of quitting, your circulation improves and walking becomes easier; your lung function increases by up to 30%. Within five years of quitting, your lung cancer death rate decreases by nearly 50% compared to one pack per day smokers; your risk of cancer of the mouth is half that of a tobacco user.
Chapter three concepts were very helpful in allowing me to have a more analytical perspective of the article. The points that are made in the article coincide with how the brain proccesses the addiction to cigarettes and how the body responds. It is very interesting how so many different parts of the brain are involved in cigarette addiction. Chapter three gives us insight as to why people are motivated to smoke, such as the medial forebrain bundle which is involved in the pleasure and reinforcement of smoking. Also, the anterior cingulate cortex would be involved with the decision to smoke in the first place, since it's responsible for the control of day-to-day choices.
Terms: biochemical agents, addiction, medial forebrain bundle, anterior cingulate cortex, pleasure, reinforcement
This article discusses the addictive nature of nicotine and how smoking in movies can actually play a role in influencing non smokers to pick up the habit or for those who quit, to relapse. I was surprised to learn that even with the knowledge of its harms, 20% of adults are smokers. Even after different therapies, a startling 50% of smokers will relapse in a given year. The article ends by stating that we have a long way to go in figuring out what will work to help people stop smoking. One of the most interesting things I thought about this article was that actors in movies can still make smoking look "cool" and cause relapse. I am one of those people who is very opposed to smoking because I grew up knowing what it can do to a person. I can't imagine any actor I like influencing me to think otherwise. I do realize that this is not the intention of smoking in movies, but it amazes me none the less.
The topic I wanted to find out more about was how watching a smoker in a movie activates certain areas of the brain to cause relapse. What I found was that areas of the brain such as the right posterior amygdala and posterior hippocampus were more active when participants were shown pictures of smoking images. These areas of the brain are the pleasure centers and dopamine reward centers that we read about in Chapter 3. The chapter talked about how nicotine produces hypersensitivity to dopamine stimulation causing addiction. If used for a long period of time this sensitizes these particular brain structures greater than naturally occurring rewards. The fMRI scans showed that even after smokers had quit, the mere sight of a cigarette or smoking image activated their reward centers. After reading this it is no wonder that simply watching a movie can trigger a relapse. The brain is still getting enjoyment/reward out of the act.
I used to think that if someone wanted to quit smoking they should just stop talking about it and actually do it. After reading this chapter and article it is clear that smoking, and other addictions, are much more than just enjoying the act. Peoples brains become dependent on the substance so after years of using, it could take years of therapy to no longer gain the same reward.
Terms: dopamine, hypersensitization, hippocampus, amydala, fMRI, addiction, pleasure center, reward
In the article “Smoking in movies: Why your brain thinks it’s cool.” Studies suggest that a smoker trying to quit smoking could experience a relapse. The mind is more powerful than people think. The article talks about how parts of the brain liked to addiction can be easily activated simply by watching someone take a drag of a cigarette. The areas of the brain send signals to the body parts that would be used to take a drag of a cigarette just by watching the action. The brain remembers the steps and feelings involved when smoking. Smoking is a serious issue I was surprised to learn that smoking contributed to about 443,000 deaths, killing more people than AIDS, illegal drug use, car accidents, suicides and murders combined. Due to the high death rate caused by smoking, groups such as The American Lung Association and Centers for Disease Control and prevention along with other organizations have tried to ban actors from smoking in movies. They believe that children will get the wrong impression and think that smoking is cool therefore increasing the chances that they will grow up and become smokers. They also believe that this will also cause ex-smokers to start smoking again. The article then goes on to say that seven CEO’S from different companies claimed that they “believed that nicotine is not addictive” But I think that’s insane. If nicotine wasn’t addictive, wouldn’t it be easy to quit smoking.
I think this article was quite interesting, I expected the allegation about kids seeing smokers and thinking it’s cool but never did I think that people would want smoking to be banned from movies to prevent ex-smokers from relapsing. This made me want to further investigate just how certain images can trigger memories that the mind and body will respond to, the article says that it “may activate brain areas linked to the physical habits of smoking. I then began to wonder if this theory is true. Are the ex- smokers motivated to smoke again because their brain remembers the feeling of smoking and craves the nicotine or if they simply just like going through the motion of smoking because it is a habit and the images of people smoking trigger an area of the brain that makes them want to do the same thing physically? For example going through the motions of smoking, or is more psychological than that? I wanted to find out what exactly motivates people to smoke again?
In a study I found on what motivated people to smoke again I found that people are motivated to smoke again because they often found smoking to be a way to relieve stress or in some cases to lose weight. Older smokers were found to smoke for more of a social reason. People then become addicted to the nicotine in the cigarettes and become addicted to the high they experience from the nicotine which releases dopamine, making the person feel good. Once the person sees the image of people smoking, it encourages them to want to experience the same pleasure they felt when smoking.
I was able to make a connection between the Physiological aspect of the brain and smoking. When people smoke neurons in the person’s brain create receptors that respond to neurotransmitters. The presence of nicotine stimulates the brain and makes it feel good. The place where pleasure takes place is the approach-oriented structures, primarily being the hypothalamus. This leads me to believe that when ex-smokers see the images of people smoking something in their hypothalamus is triggered and that addiction for nicotine remains in the body but is triggered by neurotransmitters and receptors in the brain that want to experience the dopamine effect they felt when they smoked. The ex- smoker than begins to have addictive behaviors because they remember how happy they were when they were smoking.
With all this information and some of the information I learned in biopsych about addiction,I think I have a pretty good understanding about the motivation to quit smoking, but its such a complex subject. I honestly have so much more to learn.
Key terms: neurotransmitters, addictive behavior, addiction, motivation, approach oriented structures,
This article talks about how severely addictive cigarette smoking is. It further discusses the effects of movie images on smokers, ex-smokers and those attempting to quit. Having movie images of people smoking contributes to the number one preventative cause of deaths in most countries. The article presents scare tactic statistics about smoking and lays out the idea that having smoking in movies can cause ex-smokers to return to their addiction. It also puts a value on quitting. By talking about the health risks associated with smoking, the goal is to motivate people to quit and stay quit or to help encourage them to want to stop. The health risks are the sours of the motivation. One of the major points of the article is that smoking should not be in movies because it gives smoking a cool image to children and current smokers. Further, it’s encouraging of the smoking habit.
I’m not at all shocked by the information. I find it incredibly interesting that it is the number one cause of preventative death. You’d think people would be willing to fight pretty hard to stop doing something that waste their time and kills them slowly. The health risks that were present in the article were however, hugely intimidating. I don’t smoke, but I found the stats frightening. I feel like if I were a smoker that would be enough to encourage me to quit. I’m incredibly health conscious though. However, while reading this article, I couldn’t help but think about my fiancé and his parents. Both my fiancé and his parents smoke. Over the course of the last year, my fiancé has been attempting to quit. He quit 12 times. He has lasted anywhere from a week to 6 months. Every time, he relapses. I appreciate that the article also talked about how difficult it is to quit. Still, when it’s all said and done, none of the information shocks me in the least! I enjoyed the article, the facts, and the ideas that it presented.
I am especially interested in the idea of addiction. Addiction plays a big role in motivations. Further, and addiction can be viewed as positive or negative depending on the thing to which one is addicted. I looked for an article that outlined the addictive behavior of smoking. Addictive behaviors need greater motivation when one tries to quit because they may have such a strong physiological need for the chemicals in the cigarettes. I would like to combine the ideas of addictive behavior and internal motivation to try to figure out some methods for modifying one’s physical, psychological, emotional, behavioral, and habitual dependencies on cigarettes.
While looking through some articles I found one that talked about quitting the addictive behavior-smoking. It discusses intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The article is titled: “Reasons for quitting: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for smoking cessation in a population-based sample of smokers”. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9426790. The article uses a sample of 1,137 smokers for the study it conducts. It further defines intrinsic motivation as health concerns and self-control when it comes to motivation to quit. Extrinsic motivations for quitting include social influences and immediate reinforcement. When asked what forces have the biggest effects on an individual’s motivation to quit smoking, the majority of smokers commented that social influence and health concerns were the biggest motivators. Another interesting thing that I learned was that smokers over the age of fifty-five begin to care less about their health and things like self-control play a bigger role in their motivation to quit. After this age it becomes more of a personal issue than something that is done out of fear of illness. Younger people however, are more motivated to protect their health. It was even more interesting to find out that men are more motivated to quit for their health than women. Moreover, women are most influenced to quit when they receive reinforcement. As a smokers motivation to quit smoking increases and they become more ready to quit, they have higher levels of intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic. Those that are motivated more by health and by self-control are the ones who are intrinsically motivated and most likely to quit and stay quit. As smokers begin to approach the ready stage in the process of motivation to quit, they are often having more health concerns and experiencing fear that leads to self-control motivation and a greater desire and readiness to kick the habit for good!
Chapter 3 helped me to understand that not all motivation or motivational influences are positive. I used to think that if someone was motivated that automatically meant positive and nothing else. I also understand more about the chemical aspect of smoking and how it affects individuals. I get that it releases chemicals in the brain making it a chemical, physical and even hormonal issue and not just a matter of whether or not someone wants to quit or not. I understand, thanks to chapter 3 that chemicals that cigarettes put in our bodies can control our motivations and emotions towards an idea like quitting. The chemicals in cigarettes are psychostimulants which people can use to self-medicate. The psychostimulants release pleasure chemicals, like dopamine in the brain. This is why it’s difficult to be motivated to quit, smoking brings the people that do it pleasure and release, to them, the idea of quitting does not seem to be good because they have to be motivated to quit something that they probably enjoy. Chapter 3 taught me a lot about the chemical aspects of motivation and how something chemical, like the products in cigarettes can make it difficult to find motivation to quit and stop using something that is giving an individual pleasure.
Through all of the information, it has become incredibly clear that smoking is a difficult habit to break and that motivation needs to be strong or it won’t be enough to get someone to quit. In the end, the clearest fact of the matter is-it’s best to never start smoking in the first place! This information has taught me that it is beyond difficult to quit smoking and motivation needs to be strong!
Terms: value, risks, goal, motivation, sources of motivation, addiction/addictive behavior, positive, negative, physiological need, internal motivation, physical, psychological, emotional, behavioral, and habitual dependencies, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, hormones, chemicals, psychostimulants, pleasure, emotions, dopamine, self-medicate.