Smoking remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide ( American Cancer Society, 2010). We highlight ways that interventions may benefit from a consideration of cognitive-neuroscience findings. Persistent changes following nicotine exposure that may underlie continued dependence are described.
Continued use during adolescence, may be best understood as reflecting drug-related changes to neural systems underlying incentive processing and cognitive control, resulting in decision-making that is biased towards continued smoking. Upon smoking, adolescents are more likely to continue smoking due to the increased positive effects induced by nicotine during this period. We extend neurobiological models of adolescent risk-taking, that focus on the interplay between incentive processing and cognitive control brain systems, through incorporating psychosocial and contextual factors specific to smoking, to suggest that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to cigarette use generally, but that individual differences exist placing some adolescents at increased risk for smoking.
This paper reviews and synthesizes adolescent development and nicotine dependence literatures to provide an account of adolescent smoking from onset to compulsive use. Smoking initiation often occurs during adolescence. Smoking is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide.
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