Seeing actors smoke in a movie activates areas in smokers’ brains that are known to plan hand movements, as though they were about to light a cigarette, according to a new study in The Journal of Neuroscience.
Habitual smokers repeat the same hand motions, sometimes dozens of times a day. In this study, researchers set out to determine whether the parts of the brain that control that routine gesture could be triggered by simply seeing someone else smoke.
Smokers who exit a movie that had images of smoking are more likely to crave a cigarette, compared with ones who watched a movie without them, according to Dylan Wagner, a Dartmouth College graduate student who assisted with the study.
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