title: Nicotine enhances antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.
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.
authors: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bonn, Germany. nadine.petrovsky@uni-bonn.de
authors: Nadine
authors: N
authors: Petrovsky
authors: Ulrich
authors: U
authors: Ettinger
authors: Boris B
authors: BB
authors: Quednow
authors: Martin W
authors: MW
authors: Landsberg
authors: Judith
authors: J
authors: Drees
authors: Leonhard
authors: L
authors: Lennertz
authors: Ingo
authors: I
authors: Frommann
authors: Katharina
authors: K
authors: Heilmann
authors: Birgitta
authors: B
authors: Sträter
authors: Henrik
authors: H
authors: Kessler
authors: Norbert
authors: N
authors: Dahmen
authors: Rainald
authors: R
authors: Mössner
authors: Wolfgang
authors: W
authors: Maier
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Wagner
mesh_terms: D000279:Administration, Cutaneous; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003367:Cotinine / Q000097:blood; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D004585:Electrooculography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009538:Nicotine / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D018722:Nicotinic Agonists / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects; D012438:Saccades / Q000187:drug effects*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000097:blood / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000652:urine; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D018722:Nicotinic Agonists; D009538:Nicotine; D003367:Cotinine