According to a new study, long-term smoking could result in the thinning of a key part of the brain, which is responsible for important cognitive functions such as memory, language and perception.
The findings prove that smoking has an adverse effect on brain functioning, in addition to the heart and lungs.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that the brain cortex is thinner in long-term smokers.
The researchers studied MRI scans of smokers with an average age of 73. The study involved 244 male and 260 female participants. All the participants were studied as children as part of the Scottish Mental Survey in 1947.
Through careful analysis of the scans and statistical models, the researchers found that the participants who smoked had a thinner brain cortex. A thinner brain cortex is linked to cognitive decline in adults.
Participants who had given up smoking for a long time had a thicker brain cortex than those who had quit smoking recently. This shows that the damage may be reversible. If people quit smoking for a long time, then the thickness of the layer could recover.
But researchers said that further studies were required to fully understand how the brain improves.
"Smokers should be informed that cigarettes could hasten the thinning of the brain's cortex, which could lead to cognitive deterioration," said the study's lead author, Sherif Karama, assistant professor of psychiatry at the McGill University in Canada.
The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
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