If you’re a smoker, the findings of this new study will make you want to quit.

As if cancer, premature aging, gum disease, lung disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease weren’t reasons enough to quit smoking, a new study shows yet another scary effect of lighting up: Thinning of the cortex, the brain’s outer layer.

While the cortex is known to thin as a person ages, that thinning seems to be accelerated in smokers. This part of the brain is where functions such as memory, language, and perception take place — and a thinning cortex is associated with cognitive decline.

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