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Nicotine enhances antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls
- Source :
- The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology / official scientific journal of the Collegium, The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology; Vol 16
- Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Nicotine has been proposed to be a cognitive enhancer, particularly in schizophrenia patients. So far, the published studies of nicotine effects on antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients only tested participants who were deprived smokers. Thus, we aimed to test both smoking and non-smoking patients as well as healthy controls in order to extend previous findings. Moreover, we employed a paradigm using standard and delayed trials. We hypothesized that, if nicotine is a genuine cognitive enhancer, its administration would improve antisaccade performance both in smoking and non-smoking participants. A total of 22 patients with schizophrenia (12 smokers and 10 non-smokers) and 26 controls (14 smokers and 12 non-smokers) completed the study. The effects of a nicotine patch (14 mg for smokers, 7 mg for non-smokers) on antisaccade performance were tested in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. Schizophrenia patients made significantly more antisaccade errors than controls (p = 0.03). Both patients and controls made fewer antisaccade errors in the delayed trials than in the standard trials (p < 0.0001). Nicotine significantly reduced antisaccade error rate in the standard trials, but not in the delayed trials (p = 0.02). Smoking status did not influence the nicotine effect on antisaccade error rate (p = 0.10) indicating an equal procognitive effect of nicotine in smokers and non-smokers. Overall the present findings indicate that beneficial effects of nicotine on antisaccade performance are not confined to smoking schizophrenia patients. Instead, the findings likely represent genuine nicotine-induced enhancement of cognitive performance.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_treatment
Statistics as Topic
Nicotine
2738 Psychiatry and Mental Health
0302 clinical medicine
2736 Pharmacology (medical)
Pharmacology (medical)
Nicotinic Agonists
Cotinine
Cross-Over Studies
Smoking
Cognition
Middle Aged
16. Peace & justice
3. Good health
Psychiatry and Mental health
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor
3004 Pharmacology
Schizophrenia
Female
Smoking status
Psychology
medicine.drug
Clinical psychology
Adult
medicine.medical_specialty
Adolescent
Nicotine patch
610 Medicine & health
Administration, Cutaneous
Young Adult
03 medical and health sciences
Double-Blind Method
Internal medicine
Reaction Time
Saccades
medicine
Humans
Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance
Beneficial effects
Pharmacology
Analysis of Variance
medicine.disease
030227 psychiatry
Electrooculography
10054 Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology / official scientific journal of the Collegium, The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology; Vol 16
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9e7c4b81c745dda75b5c940ccfba1156