Pearl Chiu and fellow colleagues at Baylor University, Houston, Texas, wondered why smokers continue to smoke even in the face of a mountain of medical evidence that it is harmful to human health and can reduce their lifespans.

The researchers used brain scans and a simple financial investment game with 31 chronic smokers and 31 non-smokers. All of the subjects played a game where they simulated investing money in the stock market.

After each round of investment, they were given feedback on what they did wrong and right. Investment advice was given on their incorrect moves and how they could possibly make more money in the next round.

In the majority of cases, non-smokers took this advice and wisely used it to become better investors in the next round. However, the smokers generally did not act on this advice, continuing to make the same poor decisions round after round when investing their play money.

Chiu and her team believe that their findings may help scientists learn why the brains of smokers (and other people with addictions) function differently than people who don’t smoke (and don’t have such addictions).

Their article (along with its abstract) “Smokers’ brains compute, but ignore, a fictive error signal in a sequential investment task” appears online in the journal Nature Neuroscience (March 2, 2008).

The authors of the article are Pearl H. Chiu, Terry M. Lohrenz, and P. Read Montague. Associations with the authors include one or more of the following: the Computational Psychiatry Unit, Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Neuroscience, and Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, all in Houston, Texas, United States.

Learn more about the study by reading the abstract to their paper. Please click for the next page.