Sniffing Pleasant Odors may Decrease Cigarette Cravings
Smoking today is known to be an addictive habit. In fact, a
significant group of people who want to quit smoking will relapse after roughly
two weeks of not smoking. However, a new study from the APA has shown that smokers
who sniff a pleasant smell prior to smoking will have an easier time resisting
the urge to smoke. In this study, the researchers selected 232 smokers from the
ages of 18-55. First, the participants were exposed to multiple different smells
and asked to identify the most pleasant smell to them. Then, participants were
asked to light a cigarette and rate (from 1-100) their desire to smoke that cigarette.
After the participants gave a rating, they were given a container to sniff the
odor that each participant said was most pleasant. The results suggest that sniffing
the pleasant odor while a cigarette was lit caused the craving of smoking the
cigarette to decrease. The researchers believe that the pleasant odors were
able to evoke positive memories which distracted the participants from wanting
to smoke the cigarette. This idea can become the foundation for controlling nicotine
cravings of individuals who want to stop smoking.
One of the main sections within Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina was implementing multiple senses to
our learning. He stated that olfaction has the strongest ability out of our “5
senses” to recall memories. Moreover, olfaction typically provides the most
detail to memories that are recalled through our senses. This would support how
the participants were distracted by the smell since, the more detail a memory
has, the more thought you are putting into the memory. Thus, there is no room
to think about the craving of smoking. In my sensation and perception class, we
talked about how every sense, except for olfaction, must relay to the thalamus
before it can get sent to different parts of the brain. This supports the idea
that smells will evoke the strongest memories since it has a direct path to the
different parts of the brain. The evidence of olfaction having the ability to
evoke complex memories and have a direct pathway to different regions in the
brain could lead to research indicating olfaction is one of our most crucial
senses.
I fond an article that would serve as additional support for this research. John McGann (https://neurosciencenews.com/human-olfaction-6650/) explains that our sense of smell is more important than we think, and has the ability to influence behavior, cause a recall of memories and emotions as well as shaping perceptions. By studying existing research, McGann concludes that our olfactory bulb has just as many neurons as other mammals, and therefore making us similarly susceptible to distinguishing smells. This could contribute to the memories recalled when we experience certain scents. We have the ability to detect something as specific as the difference between homemade cookies your mom made when you were a kid from store bought cookie dough, and thus eliciting the childhood memory of making cookies with your mom.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that they found these scents as a distraction from smoking. I would've thought associating positive feelings/memories with smoking would have increased the craving.
I fond an article that would serve as additional support for this research. John McGann (https://neurosciencenews.com/human-olfaction-6650/) explains that our sense of smell is more important than we think, and has the ability to influence behavior, cause a recall of memories and emotions as well as shaping perceptions. By studying existing research, McGann concludes that our olfactory bulb has just as many neurons as other mammals, and therefore making us similarly susceptible to distinguishing smells. This could contribute to the memories recalled when we experience certain scents. We have the ability to detect something as specific as the difference between homemade cookies your mom made when you were a kid from store bought cookie dough, and thus eliciting the childhood memory of making cookies with your mom.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that they found these scents as a distraction from smoking. I would've thought associating positive feelings/memories with smoking would have increased the craving.
(PS the other comment is me, I didn't realize I was signed in as my student email account by default!)
I found an article that also expressed/supported that smelling pleasing odors can help decrease the cravings for a cigarette. In a study published by researchers at the University of Pittsburg they found that taking a deep breath of some pleasant-smelling odors such as peppermint, vanilla, or chocolate cold help keep cigarette cravings lower. In their study, they enrolled 232 smokers and reported that after they sniffed their favorite smells their intensity of craving a cigarette fell by 23%. In addition, I went I continued reading to figure out why smell has just an impact on cravings. The article explained that olfactory cues- smells related to a physical object or memory are an important part of how humans navigate. Scientist aren’t EXCATLY sure why the flavored scents draws focuses away from smoking, they believe it could be related to the memory’s that scent interacts with, and therefore is distracting. In addition, lots of smells can elicit emotions or motivations in a stronger form of other senses. Its consistent with the strong connections of olfactory neural systems with brain regions controlling these states (motivation and emotion).
ReplyDeletehttps://www.popsci.com/scent-quit-smoking#page-2
Hi Trevor,
ReplyDeleteThat is definitely interesting! Do you think this could potentially be a proposed treatment for cigarette use in the future? I love how smell has the ability to have us recall pleasant memories so easily and quickly. However, I do wonder if this distraction element would be strong enough to wean someone off smoking in the long-term. Distraction is a powerful thing but I feel like it can only be effective in so long as you let it.
When I was younger my swim coach told me that he used to continually pair distinctive smells (such as citrus) with his swimmers' positive performance in practice and then let that swimmer smell the same smell right before they had to compete in a swim meet so the association between positive performance+confidence+smell was strongly established prior to to race. Therefore evoking that same sense of confidence after a great practice set before the swimmer had to swim the race, giving him/her confidence and a sense of accomplishment before the race even started. He found this to be extremely beneficial and effective in a sport, such as swimming, where having a strong mental state is especially important.
Like you mentioned in your article it goes to show you just how strong the sense of smell can really be!
This is a very interesting finding; in my Abnormal Psychology course we frequently discuss the importance of the hippocampus in memory formation as it relates to different psychological disorders. A piece of information that can relate to your article is that a heightened memory of certain events can be beneficial for survival purposes. This is important because brief arousal (a pleasant odor) can intensify memory formation because of the emotional aspects that boosts the hippocampal activity. Dr. John Medina also speaks on the idea that we pay more attention to events that are emotionally charged because dopamine is released in the system, which aids in memory and information processing. If the pleasant odor evokes an emotion in the person and the resulting POSITIVE memory is more readily available to them instead of the thought of smoking, then I wonder if this type of future treatment will help to decrease the smoking rates.
ReplyDeleteThese research results are surprising due to our knowledge on addiction. Through the units of addiction and reward in our physiological psychology class we defined addiction as a preoccupation of obtainment, compulsive use of the drug and high tendency of relapse. Therefore with nicotine addiction cigarettes become a reward within the ventral tegemental area and the sensation increases dopamine. One treatment we learned about for nicotine addiction was the nicotine patch. This treatment was agonistic since it mimics the drugs effects. We concluded in class that the most successful treatment for addiction includes a combination of many. Therefore these research findings could be a useful inclusion within these combined treatments. I did not expect olfactory treatment to be useful for treating such a complex problem such as addiction.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, before I got to the end of the first paragraph I predicted that smell would trigger something to do with memory. Of course as you mentioned John Medina's book we read I recalled Medina saying we recall and retain the more pleasant memories. However I did not know, referencing the second paragraph, that smell (olfaction) can be relayed to various parts of the brain so if participants were in recalling the memory of that pleasant smell I assumed the hippocampus had something to do with it. I wonder what the role of the mesolimbocortical dopamine system would have if the smokers went an extended amount of time without a cigarette and sniffed the pleasant smell. Would the reward system of the MDS kick in and keep the smoker smoking, or would the pleasant memory overthrow the addiction and stop smoking.
ReplyDeleteThe findings of this research are very introspective. To my understanding from knowledge acquired from cognitive psychology and physiological psychology class, addictions on a primal level initially result from a desire for a particular outcome. For this article, the desired outcome is the reward obtained from the cigarette specifically the nicotine the cigarette holds which translates to the brain through the release of dopamine. However, as we learned in psychological psychology dopamine is also transmitted in the brain during the process that leads up to the reward. Dr. McGinley explained this idea as he expressed the process of how his father brews and drinks coffee. Therefore, the desire to smoke a cigarette could be the anticipation for a reward and by shifting this desire to a pleasant smell is in line with the practices of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The pleasantness accompanied by the reward theoretically could be viewed to outweigh the noxious odor of the cigarette before gaining its reward. This research does suggest the possibility for a new way of addressing the issues surrounding cigarettes smoking can be a much more pleasant journey than previous practices.
ReplyDeleteWithdrawing from an addictive substance such as nicotine found in cigarettes is a challenge that millions of Americans go through every year. In class we learned that addiction is driven by the ventral tegmental area, a evolutionary basic structure that makes us respond to anything we find rewarding such as smoking cigarettes. The ventral tegmental area constantly sends positive signals to the prefrontal cortex. Learning is part of the addictive process as increased dendrite lengths and complexity in the nucleus form. Every time you smoke a cigarette in a different place, or with a different person, new connections are formed in your brain to associate smoking with the pleasure it derives of course and with the new object. The basal ganglia is involved in learning and emotions, as well as the amygdala and hippocampus when presented with drug stimuli. The more people become addicted, the more things they associate that drug to. So this idea in your research findings of trying to make your brain associate a different smell with the drug stimuli is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis was really interesting. In abnormal psych we learned that another reason why smoking is so addictive is the visual cues (the smoke, how the cigarette looks in your hand, seeing the lighter flick ,etc.) It's fascinating that olfactory has the ability to overpower this. In the article the participants are just smelling a pleasant odor and the effects last up to 5 minutes. But I think if they associated it with a positive memory or person like you were saying it would be a lot more helpful.
ReplyDeleteIn relation to this article, an article I came across involved Nicotine withdrawal symptoms (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323012.php). As we learned in the course Withdrawal is the negative reaction when use of a drug is stopped. In this article, Nicotine (the addictive substance found in tobacco products such as cigarettes and cigars) withdrawal becomes an uncomfortable and overwhelming experience that may even result in the user continuing the use to avoid the negative withdrawal overall. Nicotine can affect areas in the brain related to breathing, memory, appetite, and heart rate. As discussed in class, simply being in an area where someone or the user used to smoke could trigger them. Positive changes can begin to manifest as well, such as improvements in sense of smell and taste, easier breathing, etc. A strong support system and counseling have shown to help in nicotine withdrawal. Agonistic drugs (as discussed in class) such as nicotine patches, nasal or mouth sprays, and chewing gum are just a few of the Nicotine Replacement Therapy options that could also be used to help aid in dealing with Nicotine withdrawal.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! In my Psychology of Learning class, we talked about the differential reinforcement of incompatible or alternative behaviors as a way to lead to the extinction of a negative behavior in lieu of punishment - like giving a child some candy when they do their homework instead of playing video games. We also talked about stimulus control - essentially, all of the stimuli one associates with the act of taking a drug, from the environment around them to the individual motions involved in consuming the drug, become so strongly associated with the resultant effects that they compensate for the drug itself, creating a weak, albeit noticeable effect even in the drug's absence. If the experience of smoking is "interrupted" by the introduction of another stimulus, particularly an alien one like a mild, pleasant aroma, that may have an impact on the body's response.
ReplyDelete