Cigarette abstinence impairs memory and metacognition despite administration of 2 mg nicotine gum (original) (raw)
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Comparable Effects of Nicotine in Smokers and Nonsmokers on a Prospective Memory Task
The International Journal …, 2008
In a double-blind placebo-controlled study, we examined the effect of nicotine, a cholinergic agonist, on performance of a prospective memory (ProM) task in young adult volunteers. Volunteers were required to complete an ongoing lexical decision task while maintaining the ProM task (responding with a different button press to items containing particular target letters). Half of the volunteers were smokers, half were nonsmokers. Half of each group received a single dose (1 mg) of nicotine nasal spray before completing the task; the remaining volunteers received a matched inactive placebo spray. Nicotine improved performance on the ProM task when volunteers were able to devote resources to that task. Under a variant procedure, where volunteers completed a concurrent auditory monitoring task, ProM performance was impaired under nicotine. Results are discussed in terms of the resource model of ProM, and the arousal model of drug effects. The data suggest that ProM under the conditions tested here is a resource-needy process, and that nicotine can improve performance by increasing available resources. Increased working memory demands that encourage redirection of resources may impair ProM performance, but the conditions under which these deficits emerge depend upon the subjective allocation of resources across tasks, rather than resource availability per se.
Smoking History and Nicotine Effects on Cognitive Performance
Neuropsychopharmacology, 2001
This study examined the effects of abstinence from smoking, of smoking history, and of nicotine administration on visual attention verbal information processing (Logical Reasoning Task), and working memory (N-Back Tasks). Fourteen smokers, 15 ex-smokers, and 9 never-smokers took part. All subjects participated in a training session (when smokers had been smoking ad libitum) and in two subsequent test sessions after administration of 4 mg nicotine gum or placebo, respectively. Smokers were 12-h abstinent when they received gum. An effect of acute nicotine administration (independent of smoking history) was seen only with respect to reaction time on the 2-Letter Search Task. Working memory performance was related to smoking history (smokers performed most poorly and never-smokers best). The Logical Reasoning Task showed no effects of either acute or chronic nicotine exposure. The findings indicate that nicotine may influence focusing of attention in smokers as well as nonsmokers, and that trait-like differences in some cognitive domains, such as working memory, may be either long-term effects or etiological factors related to smoking.
Cognitive performance effects of subcutaneous nicotine in smokers and never-smokers
Psychopharmacology, 1996
In a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study the effects of two doses of subcutaneous nicotine and saline were compared on a range of performance measures in 18 abstaining smokers and 18 never-smokers. Each subject received two injections (40 min apart) of saline, 0.3 mg nicotine, or 0.6 mg nicotine in a balanced order over three sessions. Performance was assessed before and after the injections on nine tests [news recall, Sternberg memory task, finger tapping, logical reasoning, rapid visual information processing (RVIP), long-term word recognition, digit recall, Stroop test, and critical flicker fusion threshold]. In the abstinent smokers, nicotine produced significantly faster correct responses on the logical reasoning test, more target hits, faster reaction times and improved sensitivity on the RVIP task, and more correct responses on word recognition. In neversmokers, nicotine produced faster reaction times on the RVIP and digit-recall tasks, although in the latter case this was at the expense of fewer correct responses. There were no significant differences between the two groups' responses to nicotine but smokers performed worse than never-smokers prior to injections, even controlling for background characteristics. These results are consistent with other recent research suggesting a primary effect of nicotine in enhancing cognitive performance.
Positive effects of nicotine on cognition: the deployment of attention for prospective memory.
Rationale Human and animal studies over the last two decades report that nicotine can improve cognitive performance. Prospective memory (PM), the retrieval and implementation of a previously encoded intention, is also improved by pre-administration of nicotine. As with other nicotine effects, however, predicting precisely how and when nicotine improves the processes engaged by PM has proved less straightforward. Objective We present two studies that explore the source of nicotine’s enhancement of PM. Experiment 1 tests for effects of nicotine on preparatory attention (PA) for PM target detection. Experiment 2 asks whether nicotine enhances processing of the perceptual attributes of the PM targets. Materials and methods Young adult non-smokers matched on baseline performance measures received either 1 mg nicotine or matched placebo via nasal spray. Volunteers completed novel PM tasks at 15 min post-administration. Results Experiment 1 confirmed that pre-administration of nicotine to non-smokers improved detection rate for prospective memory targets presented during an attention-demanding ongoing task. There was no relationship between PM performance and measures of preparatory attention. In experiment 2, salient targets were more likely to be detected than non-salient targets, but nicotine did not confer any additional advantage to salient targets. Conclusion The present study suggests that nicotinic stimulation does not work to enhance perceptual salience of target stimuli (experiment 2), nor does it work through better deployment of preparatory working attention (experiment 1). An alternative explanation that nicotine promotes PM detection by facilitating disengagement from the ongoing task is suggested as a future line of investigation.
The Effects of Nicotine on Attention and Working Memory in Never-Smokers
Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 2005
The subjective and physiological effects of nicotine in nicotine-naïve individuals are consistent across studies, though the cognitive effects are variable: Positive, negative, or no effects have been reported. Assessing specific cognitive processes (e.g., alerting, orienting, executive function, and phonological and visuospatial working memory) may help reduce this variability. This within-subject study (N ϭ 20) was designed to assess the effect of nicotine gum (0, 2, or 4 mg) on subjective, physiological, and cognitive measures. Dose-dependent increases in dysphoria and heart rate were observed, though nicotine did not influence any aspect of attention or working memory. Future studies should take into account the difference in effect sizes for cognitive versus physiological/subjective measures and maximize power (e.g., increase sample size) accordingly.
Psychopharmacology, 1992
Studies examining facilitation of human memory by the administration of nicotine have given equivocal results and it has been argued that the positive findings on memory may have resulted indirectly from an effect on attention, rather than from a direct effect on memory storage. This study compared the "attentional" and the "mnemonic" hypotheses directly, by using both immediate and delayed recall tasks in a verbal free recall study, in which volunteers smoked on a fixed regime during presentation of a 32 word list (namely, one puff after each of eight 4-word blocks). The serial position curve for immediate recall demonstrated a significant improvement on the later blocks of the list (an attentional effect) when volunteers smoked a nicotine-containing cigarette. However, improved performance was found for items at the beginning of the list on the delayed recall measure and this improvement was significant on the first block of 4 words. Since nicotine input had been taken after presentation of this information, the results demonstrate post-learning facilitation of memory by nicotine.
Working memory in cigarette smokers: comparison to non-smokers and effects of abstinence
Addictive Behaviors, 2006
The present study was designed to examine the effect of cigarette smoking and withdrawal on working memory. Participants included 15 smokers and 22 matched non-smokers. For both groups the N-Back Task (of working memory) was administered in two test blocks on each of two days. On one day, smokers were tested after z 13 h abstinence; on the other day, testing began V 1 h after smoking. Smokers inhaled one cigarette between the blocks on each test day. Results indicated that performance of smokers after z 13 h but not V 1 h abstinence was significantly less accurate than that of non-smokers. A within-subject comparison revealed that in the abstinence session, smokers had significantly longer response latencies (in the 2-back condition) and made more overall errors compared to the satiety session. Smoking between test blocks in the abstinence session did not significantly affect performance although it significantly reduced craving. These findings provide further evidence for a deficit in 0306-4603/$ -see front matter D Addictive Behaviors 31 working memory associated with acute abstinence from smoking, which may contribute to the difficulty of smoking cessation. D
Acute administration of nicotine does not enhance cognitive functions
Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, 2019
Chronic smokers often claim that smoking improves their cognitive abilities, such as concentration. However, scientific evidence to support this claim is scarce. Previous studies gave inconclusive results, and some of them had significant methodological flaws. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test whether smoking a single cigarette affects performance across several cognitive domains. It included a group of 22 occasional smokers aged 19–29 years. Attention, working memory, and visuospatial reasoning were assessed using a within-subjects design with a control setting. There were two separate testing sessions two days apart. Half the group started with experimental and the other half with control setting. In the experimental setting, the participants completed the first block of tasks, smoked one cigarette (with a nicotine yield of 0.5 mg), and then completed the second block of tasks. In the control setting, the procedure was the same, except that the participants had a glass ...
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2011
Smokers experience cognitive decrements during tobacco abstinence and boosts in performance upon resumption of smoking. Few studies have examined whether smoking cessation treatments such as transdermal nicotine ameliorate these decrements and/or attenuate the cognitive effects of smoking. Identifying the effects of nicotine on these tobacco-related changes in performance could guide the development of more efficacious treatments. The purpose of this double-blind, randomized, laboratory study was to use process-specific cognitive tasks to examine the effects of transdermal nicotine (TN) and tobacco smoking on attention and working memory in overnightabstinent smokers (N=124; 54 women). Each participant completed four, 6.5-hour sessions corresponding to 0, 7, 14, or 21 mg TN doses, and smoked a single cigarette four hours after TN administration. Outcome measures were administered before and after smoking, and included tasks measuring attention (alerting, orienting, and executive function), working memory (verbal and spatial), and psychomotor function. Analysis of variance (p < .05) revealed that TN improved verbal and spatial working memory performance, as well as psychomotor function. Smoking, independent of TN dose, improved alerting, verbal working memory, and psychomotor function. Lastly, TN partially attenuated the effects of smoking on some working memory outcomes. These findings lend evidence to the idea that TN ameliorates some abstinence-related cognitive decrements and suggest that TN does not completely attenuate the cognitive effects of a concurrently smoked cigarette. Consequently, TN's efficacy as a smoking cessation treatment might be improved should these limitations be better addressed by either modifying or supplementing existing treatments.