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Nicotine modulates reorienting of visuospatial attention and neural activity in human parietal cortex.
- Source :
-
Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology [Neuropsychopharmacology] 2005 Apr; Vol. 30 (4), pp. 810-20. - Publication Year :
- 2005
-
Abstract
- Prior studies in animals and humans indicate that reorienting of visuospatial attention is modulated by the cholinergic agonist nicotine. We have previously identified neural correlates of alerting and reorienting attention in humans and found that the parietal cortex is specifically involved in reorienting. This study investigates whether the alerting and reorienting systems, especially in the parietal cortex, are modulated by nicotine. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and studied 15 nonsmoking volunteers under placebo and nicotine (NICORETTE) polacrilex gum 1 and 2 mg). Subjects performed a cued target detection task with four different types of randomly intermixed trials (no, neutral, valid, and invalid cue trials). Alerting was captured by comparing BOLD activity and reaction times (RTs) in neutrally cued trials with no cue trials. Reorienting was isolated by comparing invalidly with validly cued trials. On the behavioral level, nicotine affected reorienting of attention by speeding RTs in invalidly cued trials; alerting was not affected by nicotine. Neurally, however, nicotine modulated both attentional systems. Pharmacologic effects on alerting-related brain activity were mainly evident as modulation of BOLD responses in the right angular gyrus and right middle frontal gyrus due to a reduction of neural activity in no cue trials. In the reorienting system, effects of nicotine were mainly evident in the left intraparietal sulcus and precuneus and due to a reduction of neural activity in invalidly cued trials. We conclude that nicotine enhances reorienting of attention in visuospatial tasks and that one behavioral correlate of speeded RTs is reduced parietal activity.
- Subjects :
- Acetylcholine metabolism
Adult
Attention physiology
Brain Mapping
Cues
Female
Frontal Lobe drug effects
Frontal Lobe physiology
Functional Laterality physiology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neural Inhibition drug effects
Neural Inhibition physiology
Neural Pathways drug effects
Neural Pathways physiology
Neuropsychological Tests
Nicotinic Agonists pharmacology
Orientation physiology
Parietal Lobe physiology
Photic Stimulation
Space Perception physiology
Synaptic Transmission drug effects
Synaptic Transmission physiology
Tobacco Use Disorder physiopathology
Visual Cortex drug effects
Visual Cortex physiology
Attention drug effects
Nicotine pharmacology
Orientation drug effects
Parietal Lobe drug effects
Space Perception drug effects
Tobacco Use Disorder metabolism
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0893-133X
- Volume :
- 30
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 15668726
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.npp.1300633