Comparable Effects of Nicotine in Smokers and Nonsmokers on a Prospective Memory Task

Abstract

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. Neuropsychopharmacology (2006) 31, 1545-1549.

Nicotine derived from the electronic cigarette improves time-based prospective memory in abstinent smokers

“…The facilitative effect of nicotine on PM was observed here on timebased but not event-based tasks. This is in contrast to Rusted's group (Rusted et al 2005(Rusted et al , 2009Rusted and Trawley 2006) who have not included time-based tasks but who have found improvements with nicotine on event-based PM, and with Jansari et al (in press) who found effects of nicotine gum on both event-and time-based tasks with comparable effect sizes. That differences have emerged between these studies is not surprising given the different methods of nicotine administration and heterogeneous PM tasks employed which vary in the extent to which they engage strategic processing.…”

“…Improved PM performance in 2hr abstinent smokers was observed after smoking a cigarette. In a later study using the same paradigm, nicotine nasal spray was also shown to improve PM performance in both abstinent smokers and non-smokers (Rusted and Trawley 2006). Using a virtual reality paradigm, the Jansari Assessment of Executive Functions (JEF), our group (Jansari et al in press) has observed a facilitative effect of 4mg nicotine gum on event-based and time-based PM in 2hr abstinent smokers.…”

“…It is possible, however, that nicotine may confer a benefit over and above a reversal of deprivation-associated deficits as is suggested by facilitative effects of nicotine in minimally (2hr) deprived smokers and non-smokers (Rusted and Trawley 2006;Rusted et al 2009). Ascertaining such a 'true' facilitative effect of nicotine was beyond the scope of this study but it would be interesting to determine whether nicotine derived via the e-cigarette can improve PM in non-smokers and potentially offer another pharmacological intervention to promote cognitive functioning in older adults.…”

The APOE paradox: do attentional control differences in mid-adulthood reflect risk of late-life cognitive decline

“…The card-sort task (Rusted & Trawley, 2006) required participants to respond to a succession of playing card stimuli, displayed in a pseudo-random order on screen. In each trial, a card back was displayed for a variable duration (100-1000ms), followed by a card face, which was displayed for 1000ms.…”

“…The behavioural session administered a rapid visual information processing task (RVIP; Wesnes & Warburton, 1983) and a PM measure (Rusted & Trawley, 2006), to establish if a speed-accuracy trade-off in e4 carriers is reliably observed. Specifically, the research expected to replicate the e4 advantage in PM retrieval, and target detection on the RVIP, in comparison to the population norm (e3 homozygotes), at the cost of response latency in this group.…”