Abstract
In a double-blind placebo-controlled cross-over 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 never-smokers, 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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Clark WC, Rutschman J, Link R, Brown JA (1963) Comparison of flicker fusion thresholds obtained by the methods of forced choice and limits in psychiatric patients. Percept Mot Skills 16: 19–30
Cohen C, Pickworth WB, Bunker EB, Henningfield JE (1994) Caffeine antagonises EEG effects of tobacco withdrawal. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 47:919–926
Curran HV, Sakulsriprong M, Lader M (1988) Antidepressants and human memory: an investigation of four drugs with different sedative and anticholinergic profiles. Psychopharmacology 95: 520–527
Foulds J, McSorley K, Sneddon J, Feyerabend C, Jarvis MJ, Russell MAH (1994) Effect of subcutaneous nicotine injections on EEG alpha frequency in non-smokers: a placebo-controlled pilot study. Psychopharmacology 115:163–166
Freeman PR (1989) The performance of the two-stage analysis of two-treatment, two-period crossover trials. Statist Med 8: 1421–1432
Heishman SJ, Taylor RC, Henningfield JE (1994) Nicotine and smoking: a review of effects on human performance. Exp Clin Psychopharmacology 2:345–395
Henningfield JE, Stapleton JM, Benowitz NL, Grayson RF, London ED (1993) Higher levels in arterial than venous blood after cigarette smoking. Drug Alcohol Depend 33:23–29
Hughes JR (1991) Distinguishing withdrawal relief and direct effects of smoking. Psychopharmacology 104:409–410
Jarvis MJ (1993) Does caffeine intake enhance absolute levels of cognitive performance? Psychopharmacology 110:45–52
Jones GM, Sahakian BJ, Levy R, Warburton DM, Gray JA (1992) Effects of acute subcutaneous nicotine on attention, information processing and short-term memory in Alzheimer’s disease. Psychopharmacology 108:485–494
Kerr JS, Sherwood N, Hindmarch I (1991) Separate and combined effects of social drugs on psychomotor performance. Psychopharmacology 104:113–119
Le Houezec J, Jacob P, Benowitz NL (1993) A clinical pharmacological study of subcutaneous nicotine. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 44:225–230
Le Houezec J, Halliday R, Benowitz NL, Callaway E, Naylor H, Herzig K (1994) A low dose of subcutaneous nicotine improves information processing in non-smokers. Psychopharmacology 114:628–634
Mangan GL, Golding J (1978) An “enhancement” model of smoking maintenance? In: Thornton RE (ed) Smoking behaviour: physiological and psychological influences. Churchill Livingston, Edinburgh, pp 87–114
Perkins KA, Epstein LH, Stiller RL, Sexton JE, Debski TD, Jacob RG (1990) Behavioral performance effects of nicotine in smokers and non-smokers. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 37:11–15
Perkins KA, Grobe JE, Fonte C, Goettler J, Caggiula AR, Reynolds WA, Stiller RL, Scierka A, Jacob RG (1994) Chronic and acute tolerance to subjective, behavioral and cardiovascular effects of nicotine in humans. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 270:628–638
Pritchard WS, Robinson JH, Guy TD (1992) Enhancement of continuous performance task reaction time by smoking in non-deprived smokers. Psychopharmacology 108:437–442
Provost SC, Woodward R (1991) Effects of nicotine gum on repeated administration of the stroop test. Psychopharmacology 104:536–540
Russell MAH, Jarvis MJ, Jones G, Feyerabend C (1990) Non-smokers show acute tolerance to subcutaneous nicotine. Psychopharmacology 102:56–58
Sahgal A (1987) Some limitations of indices derived from signal detection theory: evaluation of an alternative index for measuring bias in memory tasks. Psychopharmacology 91:517–520
Senn SJ (1992) Is the “simple carry-over” model useful? Statist Med 11:715–726
Snyder FR, Henningfield JE (1989) Effects of nicotine administration following 12 h of tobacco deprivation: assessment on computerised performance tasks. Psychopharmacology 97:17–22
Snyder FR, Davis FC, Henningfield JE (1989) The tobacco withdrawal syndrome: performance decrements assessed on a computerized test battery. Drug Alcohol Depend 23:259–266
Sutherland G, Russell MAH, Stapleton J, Feyerabend C, Ferno O (1992) Nasal nicotine spray: a rapid nicotine delivery system. Psychopharmacology 108:512–518
Waller D, Levander S (1980) Smoking and vigilance: the effects of tobacco smoking on CFF as related to personality and smoking habits. Psychopharmacology 70:131–136
Warburton DM (1992) Nicotine as a cognitive enhancer. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 16:181–191
Warburton DM, Arnall C (1994) Improvements in performance without nicotine withdrawal. Psychopharmacology 115:539–542
Wesnes K, Warburton D (1983) Smoking, nicotine and human performance. Pharmacol Ther 21:189–208
Wesnes K, Warburton DM (1984a) The effects of cigarettes of varying yield on rapid information processing performance. Psychopharmacology 82:338–342
Wesnes K, Warburton dM (1984b) Effects of scopolamine and nicotine on human rapid information processing performance. Psychopharmacology 82:147–150
West RJ, Hack S (1991) Effects of cigarettes on memory search and subjective ratings. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 38:281–286
West RJ, Jarvis MJ (1986) Effects of nicotine on finger tapping rate in non-smokers. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 25:727–731
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Foulds, J., Stapleton, J., Swettenham, J. et al. Cognitive performance effects of subcutaneous nicotine in smokers and never-smokers. Psychopharmacology 127, 31–38 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02805972
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02805972