{"id":236930,"date":"2026-05-11T22:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/rewiring-the-urge-to-smoke-how-targeted-brain-stimulation-may-help-people-to-quit"},"modified":"2026-05-11T22:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T03:22:28","slug":"rewiring-the-urge-to-smoke-how-targeted-brain-stimulation-may-help-people-to-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/rewiring-the-urge-to-smoke-how-targeted-brain-stimulation-may-help-people-to-quit","title":{"rendered":"Rewiring the urge to smoke: How targeted brain stimulation may help people to quit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rewiring-the-urge-to-smoke-how-targeted-brain-stimulation-may-help-people-to-quit2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For many people who smoke, quitting is not just a matter of willpower. It is a tug-of-war in the brain\u2014between the pull of reward and the ability to resist.<\/p>\n<p>A study published in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0022395626001457\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Journal of Psychiatric Research<\/i><\/a> suggests that shifting that balance may be possible. Using a noninvasive brain stimulation technique called <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2023-09-potential-treatment-nicotine.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation<\/a>, or rTMS, researchers at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center found that stimulating a specific brain region that regulates self-control significantly reduced how much people smoked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many people who smoke, quitting is not just a matter of willpower. It is a tug-of-war in the brain\u2014between the pull of reward and the ability to resist. A study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research suggests that shifting that balance may be possible. Using a noninvasive brain stimulation technique called repetitive transcranial [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}