Gone are the days of Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man on tobacco packaging, but people are still smoking up. The University of Missouri is studying the effects of behavioral therapy on cigarette smoking.
Brett Froeliger is the director of the MU Health Neuroscience Center. He told Missourinet why he’s recruiting adults to participate in two smoking-related studies that comes with pay.
“What are some of the barriers that are leading to relapse and can we develop more effective treatments,” Froeliger said. “Understanding how the brain is working in the context of drug addiction is an important step in doing that and it also helps us better understand how these treatments may be working.”
The first studies regulating the body’s need to smoke and nicotine addiction, and the second looks at the effects an antibiotic may have on brain activity and smoking withdrawal.
“If we’re going to treat smoking, or if we’re going to treat any sort of behavior that a person wants to change, we need to understand how it is that the brain is supporting that process,” he said. “That’s one goal. That, in of itself, is somewhat of an intellectual pursuit and so the natural translation of that is to use that information to help people.”
Visit HealthNeuroscienceCenter.com or text SMOKE to 2-1-0-0-0 for more information.
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